Insights
Bloomberg: Bitcoin Market Poised for CFTC Insider Trading Scrutiny
In the News Patomak Global Partners Risk Management & ComplianceBy Lydia Beyoud and Andrew Ramonas
Federal regulators looking for a way to target suspicious cryptocurrency trading may turn to a little-used insider trading regulation put in place after the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act.
Ignites: Hold the Phone: SEC Makes Case for Mobile Fund Reports
In the News Patomak Global Partners Risk Management & ComplianceBy Jill Gregorie
Investors in the age of mobile are tired of relying on Gutenberg-era fund communications, according to the SEC’s investment management unit head...
“We’re in the 21st century. It’s about time that mutual fund investors can access information in a way that is meaningful to them, rather than being married to the 1930s construct of paper delivery and disclosure,” says Paul Atkins, CEO of Patomak Global Partners, who served as an SEC commissioner between 2002 and 2008.
CNBC: Patomak CEO Paul Atkins Discusses Cryptocurrencies
In the News Patomak Global Partners Risk Management & ComplianceIn a recent CNBC interview, Patomak CEO Paul Atkins and former SEC Chairman Harvey Pitt discuss the popularity of cryptocurrencies and the regulatory outlook for this sector.
Pensions & Investments: 2018 to Bring Changes to Congress
In the News Patomak Global Partners Strategy & AdvisoryPensions & Investments reporter Hazel Bradford writes:
Many on Capitol Hill watch are expecting the action in 2018 to shift to regulators at the Department of Labor, the SEC and the Treasury Department, which oversees the Financial Stability Oversight Council.
"The real play is going to be on the new people coming into the agencies," including the SEC, which has its first full commission since 2015, said Paul Atkins, CEO of Patomak Global Partners, a Washington financial services consultancy. Mr. Atkins, a former SEC commissioner, is optimistic the agency will address market structure issues that should be less partisan. "What's good for investors should be good for markets," he said. On the enforcement side, he expects SEC officials to press for more personal accountability of officials whose companies are prosecuted for investor fraud.
Compliance Reporter Q&A with Paul Atkins
In the News Patomak Global Partners Strategy & AdvisoryJason Bisnoff, a reporter for Compliance Reporter, writes:
Paul Atkins is the CEO of Patomak Global Partners, a financial services consultancy focusing on strategy, compliance, enforcement and litigation located in Washington D.C. He is also a former commissioner at the Securities and Exchange Commission, appointed by George W. Bush. Atkins spoke with Compliance Reporter about his expectations for potential deregulation during the Trump administration, and hot button issues, such as personal liability, that compliance teams should have top of mind.
Patomak CEO’s Take on the Treasury Capital Markets Report: a Positive Step Toward Reform, Some Weaknesses Still Need to be Addressed
Patomak Post Paul Atkins Strategy & AdvisoryToday, Patomak Global Partners CEO Paul Atkins released a review of the Department of Treasury’s recently-released report on capital markets regulation. After eight years of anemic economic growth, due largely to increased barriers to small business financing and accelerating regulatory complexity, Treasury’s report sets forth a pragmatic approach to improving capital formation, expanding investor choice, and simplifying regulations. The report was issued in response to a February Executive Order that requires Treasury to identify policies that could advance, or conflict with, the President’s “Core Principles” on financial regulation. These Principles include making regulation efficient, empowering American investors, ending taxpayer-funded bailouts, and improving the regulatory process.
Overall, the Report should give investors, consumers, workers, small businesses, and the financial industry alike reason for optimism. Its recommendations on expanding access to capital, securitization, and regulatory processes, Atkins writes, neatly align with the President’s objectives. The report’s recommendations on derivatives and equity market structure also largely go in the right direction.
Atkins notes, however, that the report’s section on so-called financial market utilities accepts failed regulatory approaches that are antithetical to the Core Principles. He also writes that some of the report’s recommendations related to derivatives and equity market structure are weak or misguided.
Moving forward, Atkins encourages Treasury to embrace needed reforms to financial market policies that conflict with the President’s Core Principles in its future reports on asset management, insurance, the Financial Stability Oversight Council, and OLA. Treasury should announce that it will drop its ongoing appeal of the strong March 2016 MetLife v. FSOC court ruling that limits one of FSOC’s sweeping powers to designate firms “systemically important” – an anti-competitive and costly “too-big-to-fail” label that brings about moral hazard and adds next to nothing to make the financial system more “stable.” Treasury should also endorse Congress’s effort to rein in FSOC’s full suite of designation powers and end taxpayer-funded OLA bailouts.
Click through to read the full analysis.
The Hill: Trump’s Wall Street Cop Will Clean up Obama’s Financial Regulatory Mess
In the News Paul Atkins Strategy & AdvisoryIn a guest column in The Hill, Paul Atkins explains that “between 2009 and 2016, critical operational issues and infrastructure problems were ignored as the SEC strayed from its tripartite mission of protecting investors, facilitating capital formation, and ensuring efficient capital markets.”
Atkins cites the suite of investment management-focused rulemakings advanced at the SEC in 2015 and 2016 as a prime example of the agency’s previously misguided agenda. The solution? Atkins writes that “the SEC should re-examine, modify, and potentially rescind overly-complex mutual fund regulations, such as its fund data reporting and liquidity risk management rules.”
Atkins argues the agency should address its well-documented organizational deficiencies and prioritize its statutory mandate to protect and enhance our capital markets. He says SEC Chairman Jay Clayton is the right person to do the job as his response to the recent discovery of the SEC’s 2016 cybersecurity breach shows.
CNBC: Atkins on Outlook for Regulating Cryptocurrencies, Tokens, and Initial Coin Offerings
In the News Patomak Global Partners Risk Management & ComplianceIn a CNBC interview, Patomak Global Partners Chief Executive Paul Atkins discusses his efforts leading a voluntary effort by major companies in the blockchain technology space to develop guidelines for issuers and investors of digital assets,…
Forbes: Token Alliance Launches To Promote Best Practices For ICOs
In the News Patomak Global Partners Strategy & AdvisoryForbes reporter Laura Shin writes:
