The request for comment aims to help Treasury devise clear guidelines for stablecoin issuers, promote international coordination, and protect consumers from potential risks.
By Arthur S. Long, Parag Patel, Pia Naib, and Deric Behar
On September 19, 2025, the US Department of the Treasury (Treasury) issued an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM), seeking public comment related to its implementation of the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins Act (the GENIUS Act), a comprehensive framework
In the short term, firms are likely to face dual authorisation and significant regulatory requirements.
By Stuart Davis, Gabriel Lakeman, Brett Carr, and Emma Trankeenan
On 10 June 2025, the European Banking Authority (EBA) issued a No Action letter on the relationship between the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) and the Payment Services Directive 2 (PSD2).
The No Action letter responds to a request from the European Commission (Commission) in December 2024 that sought clarification on issues
The proposed legislation will bring cryptoassets into the full scope of UK financial services regulation and enable the UK’s future cryptoasset regime.
By Stuart Davis and Gabriel Lakeman
On 29 April, UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves unveiled draft legislation aimed at regulating cryptoassets at the International Fintech Growth Summit (IFGS) in London, sponsored by Latham & Watkins.
The proposed legislation will bring cryptoassets (including stablecoins) and cryptoasset-related activities in scope of the UK regulatory perimeter, providing the fundamental legislative framework for the UK’s future financial services regime for cryptoassets. When implemented, firms issuing stablecoins, operating cryptoasset trading platforms, and providing custody, brokerage, or dealing services will require full authorisation to conduct activity in the UK.1
The court ruled OFAC overstepped its authority in sanctioning Tornado Cash, holding that its smart contracts are not “property” under the governing statutes.
By Eric Volkman, Jenny Cieplak, Stephen P. Wink, and Deric Behar
On November 26, 2024, a three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed a Texas District Court decision and overturned the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctions designations against certain smart contracts
The deadline is fast approaching for in-scope financial entities and their ICT service providers to conform to the EU’s new digital operational resilience regulation.
By Christian F. McDermott and Alain Traill
With effect from 17 January 2025, a broad range of EU financial entities will be subject to the new EU regulation on digital operational resilience for the financial sector (DORA), with significant impact for firms and their third-party ICT service providers. As the new landscape takes shape, below is an overview of some of the key changes and steps that impacted financial entities and providers should be taking ahead of the deadline.
The case involves substantive litigation that could yield important legal principles for the treatment of decentralised projects.
By Dominic Geiser, Simon Hawkins, Sam Maxson, and Truman Mak
Decentralised autonomous organisations (DAO) are unique structures that operate autonomously in accordance with preset rules, utilising a blockchain and coordinated through a distributed consensus model. Whilst numerous DAOs are operating in the blockchain industry, these organisations are still new in legal terms and their precise legal status (including ownership and
The UK’s consultation on deregulating commercial agents could have knock-on impacts on payment services and create regulatory divergence from the EU.
By Christian McDermott, Brett Carr, and Grace Erskine
On 16 May 2024, the UK government launched a consultation into the deregulation of the Commercial Agents (Council Directive) Regulations 1993 (the Commercial Agents Regulations). The Commercial Agents Regulations implemented Council Directive 86/653/EEC (the Commercial Agents Directive) and defined certain pro-agent terms of engagement between businesses and their self-employed commercial agents who are authorised to negotiate the sale or purchase of goods on their behalf.
The stated purpose of the consultation is to ensure that the Commercial Agents Regulations serve the needs of UK businesses post-Brexit, and to remove the legal complexities resulting from the interaction of the Commercial Agents Regulations with the English legal system’s rules on agency and contract law. The UK government’s current proposal is for existing contracts under the Commercial Agents Regulations to remain in force until termination or expiry, and to prevent new contracts from being subject to the Commercial Agents Regulations.
In addition to affecting relationships between UK agents and their principals, the proposals could also have knock-on effects for the payments sector, which we explore in this post.
Proposed rule would be implemented by statute and would give primacy to parties’ choice of governing law and jurisdiction.
By Stuart Davis, Nell Perks, and Matthew Unsworth
There is at least a tentative consensus in English law that cryptocurrencies and other digital assets are capable of giving rise to property rights.[1] However, there remains considerable uncertainty around which laws should govern proprietary disputes about digital assets and which courts should have jurisdiction over those disputes.
The Financial Markets Law Committee (FMLC) explained the crux of this problem in their initial report on digital assets in 2018.[2] Traditionally, a question as to rights or entitlement to personal property is governed by the law of the place where the property is situated (lex situs). But this rule is ill-suited to digital assets which, by their nature, are intangible, digitised, and constituted on a decentralised ledger shared across a network of participants in potentially any number of jurisdictions.