Archive:July 2022

1
AUSTRALIA: SUPERANNUATION FUND INVESTMENTS – ESG AND VALUATIONS
2
United States: SEC Proposes Amendments to Shareholder Proposal Rule
3
United States: SEC Rescinds Conditions to Proxy Voting Advice Exemptions
4
AUSTRALIA: CRYPTO DOWNTURN AND ITS REGULATION
5
Europe: Systemically important outsourced service providers, eg cloud services, to be identified and regulated in the UK    
6
United States: Grayscale Appeals to DC Circuit on SEC Denial of Bitcoin ETP
7
Australia: BNPL: Credit or not?

AUSTRALIA: SUPERANNUATION FUND INVESTMENTS – ESG AND VALUATIONS

By Jim Bulling and Hugo Chow

The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) has released its final revisions to Prudential Standard SPS 530 Investment Governance (SPS 530).

The more significant amendments are in relation to valuation governance, proposed guidance for environmental, social and governance (ESG) risk management and some new issues for stress testing programs.

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United States: SEC Rescinds Conditions to Proxy Voting Advice Exemptions

By: Jon-Luc Dupuy and Keri Riemer

Update: On 28 July, 2022, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Business Roundtable and the Tennessee Chamber of Commerce & Industry sued the SEC, claiming that it did not follow proper procedures under the Administrative Procedure Act or provide adequate justification for its decision to repeal the exemption conditions described below.

On 13 July 2022, the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) repealed certain aspects of its 2020 reforms for proxy voting advice businesses (“PVABs”).

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AUSTRALIA: CRYPTO DOWNTURN AND ITS REGULATION

By Daniel Knight and Kithmin Ranamukhaarachchi

In the wake of the drawn out cryptocurrency market downturn, increased regulation of the sector seems inevitable. With nearly one million Australians transacting in cryptocurrencies last year, there have been widespread calls to enact additional protections for retail investors.

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Europe: Systemically important outsourced service providers, eg cloud services, to be identified and regulated in the UK    

By: Kai Zhang

In an 8 June 2022 policy statement,  the UK Government proposes a specific regime for supervising “critical” service providers to the financial services industry. This is to address concentration risk as many regulated firms rely on a few large service providers whose failure could potentially threaten the stability of, or confidence in, the UK’s financial system.   The Government observes that in 2020 over 65% of UK regulated firms used the same four cloud providers for cloud infrastructure services.

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United States: Grayscale Appeals to DC Circuit on SEC Denial of Bitcoin ETP

By: Stacy L. Fuller, Clifford C. Histed, Cheryl L. Isaac, Richard F. Kerr, Keri E. Riemer, and Peter J. Shea

On Thursday, Grayscale Investments, LLC (Grayscale) filed suit against the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) in the D.C. Circuit asking the court to reconsider the agency’s rejection of listing a spot Bitcoin ETP on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). In its appeal, Grayscale argued that the SEC’s ruling regarding its spot Bitcoin ETP was “arbitrary and capricious,” because it disregarded facts about the ETP and erroneously determined that listing the ETP would be in contravention of NYSE’s duties under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.

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