Securitizations

Cryptocurrencies: Are They Securities?

, and Posted on

Cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, have been in the news a lot lately, but many people still don’t know what they are—or whether they’re regulated.  Here’s a quick rundown.

What Are Cryptocurrencies?

Cryptocurrencies are decentralized digital cash systems.  Eschewing centralized control, such as a bank or government, cryptocurrencies instead rely on pseudonymous peer-to-peer networks—think Napster of yore—in which all actors in the network must recognize and reflect a transaction.  To illustrate how this works, if Person A has an apple and trades it to Person B for her orange, Person A cannot thereafter trade that apple to Person C because everyone knows from a public ledger that Person A has already traded his one apple.

The security of the public ledger is then of paramount importance—so how do cryptocurrencies ensure ledger security?  They rely on people called miners.  Miners are basically the bookkeepers of the public ledger, and anyone with the time, energy, and equipment can be a miner.  When a transaction occurs, it is not immediately added to the public ledger; instead, a miner must first confirm it.  To do so, miners generate a complicated code that: (1) memorializes the data relating to the transaction; (2) refers to the previous confirmed transaction in the system (a sequential timestamp of sorts); and (3) complies with the particular cryptocurrency’s specific requirements.  This is a challenging and necessary task that protects the public ledger—a transaction won’t be confirmed if a code can’t be generated that aligns with previous ledger entries.  Using the earlier example, once Person A’s apple-orange trade has been confirmed, he can’t trade the apple again because any code generated after that reflects that he has already traded his apple.  Without an acceptable code, no new transaction can be confirmed.

READ MORE →

What Startups Need to Know About the Revised Reg D

, and Posted on

Startups need funding, and most startups want to raise money with as little legal red tape as possible. But when a startup takes investment money, it is issuing securities, and federal securities laws generally require a company – or “issuer” – to register the offering and sale of any securities with the Securities Exchange Commission (“SEC”). The bad news is that most early-stage companies don’t have the legal resources to comply with the SEC’s registration and reporting requirements. The good news is that Congress and the SEC recognize this and so have created certain exemptions from the registration requirement.

The most commonly used exemptions derive from Sections 4(a)(2) and 3(b)(1) of the Securities Act of 1933. Section 4(a)(2) exempts issuer transactions “not involving any public offering,” while Section 3(b)(1) authorizes the SEC to create additional exemptions. The SEC adopted Regulation D (“Reg D”) in 1982 to clarify and expand the exemptions available under these two sections. The SEC further expanded Reg D in 2013 following passage of the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act of 2012 (“JOBS Act”).

Until this year, Reg D included three rules – Rules 504, 505, and 506 – that provided specific exemptions from registration. Rules 504 and 505 exempted certain offerings up to $1 million and $5 million, respectively. Rule 506 spelled out two “safe harbors” – 506(b) and 506(c). If an offering met the conditions of either of Rule 506’s “safe harbors,” it would be deemed a transaction “not involving any public offering” and would be exempt under Section 4(a)(2). READ MORE →

What’s Up with HERA’s Statute of Limitations?

Posted on

On May 4, 2012, the Southern District of New York denied in part, and granted in part UBS’s motion to dismiss the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s (“FHFA”) federal securities and state law misrepresentation claims stemming from pre-2008 securitizations.  This opinion is noteworthy because of its analysis regarding the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008’s impact on the relevant statute of limitations.

In July 2011, FHFA, as Fannie Mae’s (“Fannie”) and Freddie Mac’s (“Freddie) federal conservator, sued UBS regarding $6.4 billion in residential mortgage-backed securities purchased by the two government sponsored entities between September of 2005 and August 2007.  FHFA alleged that UBS violated, inter alia, Sections 11, 12(a)(2), and 15 of the Securities Act of 1933 (“33 Act”) by preparing and distributing offering documents which contained material misrepresentations regarding the securities underlying mortgage loans. READ MORE →