Expert Analysis

• How NYC Consumer Bill Could Expand Private Claims

  

  New York City's proposed Power Act could expose companies to sweeping private claims under its prohibition on unfair, deceptive, and abusive acts and practices, making regulatory compliance reviews and litigation-risk planning essential for businesses serving city residents, says Brian Turetsky at Hinshaw.

• Key Themes In State Bank Supervisors' AI Exam Framework

  

  The Conference of State Bank Supervisors' artificial intelligence supervisory framework introduces a set of optional questions and procedures for examiners, and it may bring meaningful consistency in how financial institutions' AI use and integration will be examined, say attorneys at Cooley.

• How Feds' Shifting Guidance Hits Bank-Fintech Partnerships

  

  A slew of recent Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency reforms will ultimately give banks and fintechs more flexibility in third-party oversight and supervisory information sharing, but institutions still must document risk-based decisions and engage proactively with regulators, say attorneys at Husch Blackwell.

• What To Watch As Florida Stablecoin Framework Takes Shape

  

  As Florida's new payment stablecoin licensing framework enters its second month, requiring issuers to map applicable state and federal obligations and account for certification and rulemaking uncertainty, businesses should build core controls while keeping launch plans and contracts flexible, says Rob Brighton at Becker.

• Opinion

  Judges Must Turn To Merits Earlier To Fix Civil Justice System

  

  The U.S. justice system is long overdue for a cultural shift that encourages judges to engage with the merits of a case from the outset, which would help to cut through procedural complexities and deliver high-quality justice efficiently and at lower cost, says Steven Kayman at Rottenberg Lipman.

• Series

  Open-Water Swimming Makes Me A Better Lawyer

  

  Swimming long distances in open waters is not necessarily an escape from my intellectual property practice, but a complementary discipline that similarly rewards sustained attention, intellectual curiosity, resilience and the ability to pursue a distant objective without losing command of the immediate task, says Christina MacDougall at Morgan Lewis.

• Opinion

  The Invisible AI Danger That May Undermine Legal Profession

  

  A public database tracking cases involving hallucinations generated by artificial intelligence recently surpassed 2,200 entries, but the bigger risk underlying attorneys’ use of such tools is that they will slowly surrender their judgment to AI and lose analytical skills, says Massachusetts District Court Associate Justice Brian Palmucci.

• SEC's 'Innovation Exemption' Isn't A Substitute For Legislation

  

  The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's recently announced innovation exemption, allowing trading in certain tokenized securities on permissioned on-chain trading platforms, is a temporary and conditional solution for a specific market model, not a general exemption for on-chain securities trading, says Niels Lemmers at Flow Traders.

• How Banks Can Better Prepare For Wire Fraud Risks

  

  Recent schemes serve as a reminder that banks can better limit liability for fraudulent wire transfers by documenting commercially reasonable security procedures, following them consistently, and addressing beneficiary name and account number discrepancies, says Shelli Clarkston at Spencer Fane.

• Opinion

  A Capital Markets Agenda For The New Congress

  

  When the 120th Congress convenes in January, it should place capital markets issues near the top of its to-do list, with a focus on legislation that can make the public company model more competitive, says David Kaufman at Thompson Coburn.

• FinCEN Scam Alerts Push Banks To Rethink AML Monitoring

  

  Recent Financial Crimes Enforcement Network guidance on digital asset scams suggests that future anti-money laundering examinations may focus less on whether institutions detect the movement of criminal proceeds and more on whether they can identify fraud schemes before victims suffer catastrophic losses, say attorneys at Ballard Spahr.

• How AI Could Help Judges Spot Their Own Biases

  

  In close cases where there’s room for discretion, artificial intelligence could challenge judges’ implicit biases by running counterfactual tests at scale — but any judicial use of such tools would need guardrails, say Arnold Peter at Peter Law and Nancy Rapoport at University of Nevada.

• Assessing Hidden Risk Of Administrative Agency Settlements

  

  Though administrative resolutions of U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission investigations may seem preferable to settled federal court actions, the possibility that private plaintiffs may use commission orders in follow-on litigation poses an extra risk, increasing the importance of negotiating the settlement's form and language, say attorneys at Debevoise.

• Parsing The Lowest SEC Enforcement Stats In Over A Decade

  

  Statistics show that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission brought a historically low number of enforcement actions during Paul Atkins' first full fiscal year as chairman, delivering on his promise to reduce enforcement in program areas focused on recordkeeping and other technical violations, say attorneys at Covington.

• Bid Protest Spotlight: Bait-And-Switch, Scope, Performance

  

  In this month's bid protest roundup, Michael Ols at MoFo offers takeaways from recent decisions examining bait-and-switch protest claims, the scope of a contractor teaming agreement and the use of an affiliate’s past performance.