They look like derivatives contracts, but act like gambling bets. They are prediction contracts– one of the fastest growing trading sectors despite conflicting regulatory frameworks, no clearcut taxation rules, unique operating policies, and rumors of insider trading. A 2025 Keyrock-Dune analysis of the global prediction market industry puts Polymarket, operating strictly overseas at the time, […]
EU’s DORA 2.0: EBA’s Third-Party Risk Management Gone Awry?
Equivalent doesn’t mean identical when it comes to the European Banking Authority’s proposal to mandate financial firms doing business on the Continent to adopt an overlapping risk management framework to the newly effective DORA for a greater number of third-party service providers. Compliance, legal, risk management and IT directors fear that following two sets of quasi-similar […]
Outlook 2026: CCOs Worry Over Supreme Court Ruling on Disgorgement
Chief compliance officers (CCOs) at U.S. financial firms need to keep a close eye this year on what the Supreme Court decides about when and how the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) should impose disgorgement of illegal profits from violations of securities laws. The high court’s final say on the matter could either spell a […]
Fund CCOs Grapple With SEC’s New Cryptocustody Stance
Chief compliance officers (CCOs) at registered investment advisers (RIAs) investing in cryptoassets shouldn’t take the recent no-action letter (NAL) from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) allowing them to select state-chartered trust companies (STCs) as qualified custodians lightly. The U.S. regulatory agency’s decision allows RIAs to breathe a sigh of relief they will not […]
Canada’s High Court to Rule on SS&C’s Spoilation Against BNY
“Failure to preserve and produce relevant documents is conduct worthy of censure” wrote Justice William Hourigan of the Court of Appeal for Ontario in the court’s scathing September 2024 ruling against The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation, now called BNY, for breach of contract with SS&C Technologies Canada Corp. He went on to say that […]
Reducing Risk of Trade Secret Theft
Have we sufficiently protected our proprietary source codes? That is the question chief compliance officers, general counsel, and technology directors at Wall Street powerhouses should know how to answer if they want to avoid the fate of Headlands Technologies LLC (HT) , a global quantitative trading firm in the midst of civil and criminal litigation involving […]
Twenty-Four Hour Trading: Corporate Actions Snafu?
With 24-hour trading on US exchanges closer to becoming a reality, back-office operations managers at some US broker-dealers are starting to worry about possible glitches processing corporate actions. Twenty-four-hour trading doesn’t mean 24 hours literally. It only means that there will be longer after-hours trading with a short trading halt of about an hour. The […]
Drug Cartels As Foreign Terrorists: AML Spotlight
US President Donald Trump’s decision in January to classify drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations and specially designated global terrorists has put anti-money laundering compliance executives at US financial institutions doing business in Latin America on high alert when it comes to their AML programs. Based on the US Department of State including eight drug […]
Business of Human Rights in New EU Reg
Oversight of third-party vendors will soon take on a new human rights twist for many local and foreign financial firms doing business in the European Union thanks to the new Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive. The European legislation, otherwise called CS3D, forces firms to impose a moral code of conduct on their direct and indirect […]
BNY Hit With Final US$11M Fine For SS&C Contract Breach
SS&C Technologies Canada Corp. has won only US$11 million instead of the US$890 million it wanted, but it still scored a final moral victory against Bank of New York Mellon for violating the terms of its market data contract with the financial technology giant. The Ontario Court of Appeal let stand a lower trial court’s […]