Ballard Spahr LLP (LexBlog United Kingdom)

On March 8, 2023, the U.K. Secretary of State for Science for Innovation and Technology announced the publication of the Data Protection and Digital Information (No.2) Bill. This new version of the Data Protection and Digital Information bill will effectively supersede the prior draft, which was first published in July of 2022. The Bill would...

Although the replacement for the Privacy Shield has garnered bigger headlines, the United States government also took another step towards a more coordinated international privacy framework by entering into the data access agreement (the “Data Access Agreement”) with the United Kingdom.  While increasingly harmonized laws are likely a positive development for businesses in the long...

Joined by two experts on the BNPL industry, we first review the types of BNPL products currently available, how they are accessed by consumers, how they generate revenue for industry participants, and potential consumer risks.  We then discuss the federal and state laws applicable to BNPL, expectations for CFPB rulemaking or other action, how the...

In 2017, the United Kingdom’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the regulator that oversees the panel of banks on whose submissions LIBOR is based, announced plans to discontinue LIBOR after 2021.  The FCA subsequently announced that no LIBOR indices will be available after June 30, 2023. In anticipation of the elimination of LIBOR, the Federal Reserve...

The CFPB has issued a final rule amending Regulation Z to address the discontinuation of the London Inter-Bank Offered Rate (LIBOR) that is currently used by many creditors as the index for calculating the interest rate on credit cards and other variable-rate consumer credit products.  In 2017, the United Kingdom’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the...

The CFPB, Federal Reserve Board, FDIC NCUA, OCC, in conjunction with the state bank and state credit union regulators, jointly issued a statement on managing the transition away from LIBOR (Joint Statement). In 2017, the United Kingdom’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the regulator that oversees the panel of banks on whose submissions LIBOR is based,...

FCA Applies Penalty Formulas, Including Thirty Percent Reduction for Early Agreement by Bank U.K. Enforcement System Provides Contrast to More Open-Ended U.S. System On June 17, 2020, the Financial Conduct Authority (“FCA”), the non-governmental financial regulator in the United Kingdom, issued a Final Notice to Commerzbank London (the “Bank”), a branch of the large German...

The CFPB has proposed amendments to Regulation Z to address the discontinuation of the London Inter-Bank Offered Rate (LIBOR) that is currently used by many creditors as the index for calculating the interest rate on credit cards and other variable-rate consumer credit products.  In 2017, the United Kingdom’s Financial Conduct Authority, the regulator that oversees...

The New York Department of Financial Services has sent a letter to the institutions that it regulates requiring each such institution, by February 7, 2020, to provide to DFS a description of its “plan to address its LIBOR cessation and transition risk.”  (LIBOR is the acronym for the London Inter-Bank Offered Rate.) The letter references...

On April 15, the UK Treasury released proposed steps, entitled a “consultation,” to adopt the EU’s Fifth Money Laundering Directive (“5AMLD”) into national law, while also seeking comments and evidence from stakeholders to inform the final government decisions on adoption of 5AMLD. In certain respects, the exchequer suggests that it might expand the scope of...

UK-based Standard Chartered Bank (“SCB”) announced the terms of significant settlements last week with various U.S. and U.K. governmental agencies, resolving a series of related investigations into the bank’s alleged violations of international sanctions and concomitant failures of anti-money laundering (“AML”) controls over a period stretching from 2007 to 2014. The bank will pay a...

Last week the CFPB announced an initiative to create a Global Financial Innovation Network (GFIN) with 11 other financial regulators and related organizations across the globe. The GFIN sprang from a previous proposition by the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to create a “global sandbox” for innovative financial services firms to be able to test...