SEC Updates Hacking Incident Response Rules for Financial Firms

US SEC updates customer data hacking rules for Wall Street

Under the changes announced Thursday, broker-dealers, investment companies, registered investment advisers and others will be required to maintain incident response programs to detect, respond to and recover from cyber-theft of customers’ personal data as well as notify individuals whose information may have been accessed without authorization, according to the SEC.

Companies affected by the rules will have to come into compliance 18 months to two years from the date the changes appear in the Federal Register, according to the agency.

Rare Sats

“In the same way a dollar is made up of 100 cents, one bitcoin is composed of 100 million satoshis—or sats, for short. But not all sats are made equal. Those produced in the year bitcoin was created are considered vintage, like a fine wine. Other coveted sats were part of transactions made by bitcoin’s inventor. Some correspond with a particular transaction milestone. These and various other properties make some sats more scarce than others—and therefore more valuable. The very rarest can sell for tens of millions of times their face value; in April, a single sat, normally worth $0.0006, sold for $2.1 million.”

There are two interesting points here. One is simply the existence of “rare sats”: To at least some … Bitcoin collectors? … some satoshis are worth more than others, due to their history or provenance.

The other is that, while some Bitcoin enthusiasts value rare sats highly and will pay a lot for them, others just cheerily assume that Bitcoin is a fungible currency. And so there is a trade….

Delaware, Inc agonises about Musk backlash as its lawyers seek changes

The drop just before the long Easter holiday weekend did not seem like a coincidence. On Thursday, March 28, a group of powerful Delaware lawyers put in motion a plan to make a series of changes to the state’s eminent corporate code, known as the Delaware General Corporation Law.

The lawyers are members of the Delaware state bar association that customarily makes such proposals to update the state’s corporate law. But this set of revisions had come hastily and was, according to the plan, to be quickly approved by the Delaware legislature in order to take effect by August 1.

It has not been an ordinary year in the First State. About two-thirds of American companies are incorporated in Delaware, attracted to the small, mid-Atlantic state by its sophisticated legal system. But a series of highly technical rulings in recent months have seemingly overturned long-standing legal provisions in both merger and stockholder agreements, leaving them open to challenges in the courts.

Crypto Case Tests SEC’s Ability to Police Blockchain Technology

Richard Heart, who founded and marketed the crypto token Hex, is accused by the Securities and Exchange Commission of selling unregistered securities and illegally using investor funds to buy luxury goods, including a $1.38 million Rolex watch and a 555-carat black diamond known as “The Enigma.” Heart is asking a federal judge to dismiss the SEC’s case.

The case is a test of law enforcement’s reach in policing borderless crypto transactions. It also underscores questions about liability and who—or what—can be named as defendants as the US government cracks down on decentralized finance platforms, and as currencies such as Bitcoin have once again surged in trading.

The SEC has appointed itself the “global governor of blockchain technology,” lawyers for Heart, who lives in Finland, said in an April court filing. The SEC’s response is due in the coming weeks.

Simpson Thacher’s Top Partners to Make $20 Million This Year

Top partners at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett are expected to earn more than $20 million this year after the Wall Street law firm widened the spread between its highest and lowest-paid equity partners.

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The spread between Simpson Thacher’s highest and lowest paid partners is now 9-to-1, the firm confirmed. Partner compensation spreads have been widening across the industry.