MyComplianceOffice Blog

The regulatory framework for Digital Assets and Cryptocurrencies (Crypto) has been rapidly evolving. Regulators expect that firms play their part to ensure that investing in crypto is as safe as possible for investors and customers or else enforcement will be pursued.

Failure to disclose connected persons and personal relationships as required by firm policies and jurisdictional regulations can lead to significant consequences for both an individual and their firm. Recent events saw two high-profile media executives resign from their jobs because they failed to disclose their relationship under the organization’s disclosure policies, not because of the nature of the relationship itself. 

In January 2022, Hong Kong’s financial-markets regulator fined a large Asian Bank HK$348.25m ($44.7m) for misconduct on some of the bank’s equities-trading desks between 2008 and 2018. The regulator concluded that the bank was using deceptive practices to increase its market share and business, in addition to breaking the trust of clients.

During the webinar Conduct, Compliance and Ethics in Capital Markets, an executive panel with speakers from FINRA, Northern Trust Corporation, MCO and Greenwich Associates discussed how technology and data management are key to an effective conduct risk strategy.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recently released it’s report of enforcement actions for their fiscal year 2021 ending on September 30. 697 companies were hit with violations this year.

New actions were included against emerging threats in the crypto and SPAC spaces, but there was still plenty of enforcement in more traditional areas like insider trading, inadequate disclosure and breaching of fiduciary duty.

What types of misconduct landed individuals and firms on the SEC’s radar this year?