On October 21, 2020, the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (SDNY) entered a final judgment on consent against Kik Interactive Inc. (Kik) after the Court previously determined that Kik failed to comply with the registration requirements of the Securities Act of 1933[1] (Securities Act) as previously alleged by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).[2] In the settlement, Kik agreed to (i) pay a $5 million penalty to the SEC, and (ii) provide the SEC with 45 days’ notice before Kik participates in any issuance, offer, sale, or transfer of any of d ..read more

The cryptocurrency and digital-asset ecosystem in the Asia-Pacific region has seen rapid growth over recent years and is generating opportunities for novel business models, but is also giving rise to various types of fraud. While fraud risk in this sector is being mitigated by service providers such as cryptocurrency exchanges and digital-wallet operators implementing practical safeguards for the protection and monitoring of assets and transactions, and while comprehensive regulatory frameworks are being introduced across the region to address operational risk, fraudulent actors remain able to ..read more

Earlier this month, Telegram Inc. announced that it was abandoning its development of the Telegram Open Network (TON).  The move comes after the SEC won a preliminary injunction against Telegram in the Southern District of New York in March that blocked Telegram from launching TON and its native cryptocurrency, the Gram.  The Court determined that the SEC had shown that there was a substantial likelihood it could prove that Telegram’s plan to distribute Grams into a secondary market constituted an unregistered securities offering.  In a blog post accompanying the announcement, P ..read more

Last week (28 November 2019), the European Banking Authority (EBA) released the final version of its report entitled ‘EBA Guidelines on ICT and security risk management’ (the Guidelines) (link here) on the mitigation and management of financial institutions’ (FIs) information and communication technology (ICT) and security risks. We highlight below some of the key takeaways. Read our full report on our sister site, the Technology Law Dispatch ..read more

On 19 November 2019, the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS) published its report on open banking and its implications for banks and banking supervision. The report builds on the BCBS’ previous findings on open banking and application programming interfaces (APIs) in its 2018 report (“Sound practices on the implications of FinTech developments for banks and bank supervisors”). We highlight findings from the report from a data protection perspective below. Read the full report on our sister site the Technology Law Dispatch ..read more

Reed Smith successfully represented DBS, Southeast Asia’s largest bank,  in structuring and closing a strategic business partnership with Google. The arrangement will see Google make DBS payment systems available on Google’s G Pay platform, which will allow DBS customers using that platform to send and receive funds, and pay merchants. The transaction was led by a Reed Smith cross-border team that included Singapore lawyers Hagen Rooke and Charmian Aw, and UK lawyer Howard Womersley Smith. The Firm played a key role in structuring and negotiating the deal terms and in  drafting the transaction ..read more

Intro and Background: Technology innovation tends to happen at a rapid pace, as companies take on a “fail fast” approach to ensure that products are responsive to market demands. If technology advances at the speed of sound, the legal structures and regulations often struggle to keep up. In the blockchain and digital asset space, an antiquated regulatory framework does not attract innovative businesses or capital. Wyoming Makes Its Move: This year, Wyoming enacted a series of new laws to create a sound and “user-friendly” regulatory regime for digital assets and digital banking. This regime re ..read more

On October 11, 2019 the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed an emergency action in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, and obtained a temporary restraining order against Telegram Group Inc. and its wholly-owned subsidiary, TON Issuer Inc. According to the SEC’s complaint,[1] the two offshore entities were conducting an unregistered offering of securities in the form of digital tokens in the U.S. and overseas that has raised more than $1.7 billion to finance the companies’ business, including the development of their own blockchain—the “Telegr ..read more

In a recent decision, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York invalidated Western Express Bancshares, LLC’s (Western Express) U.S. Patent No. 8,498,932 relating to a method of transferring funds through a bankcard. The court’s decision nixed Western Express’ assertion of patent infringement claims against Green Dot Corporation (Green Dot) for the sale and offering of CashBack Visa® Debit Cards, Reloadable Prepaid Visa® Cards, Load Go Prepaid Visa® Cards, and Reloadable Prepaid Mastercard® Cards. Green Dot moved to dismiss the action on the ground that the ’932 Patent is i ..read more

Miami International Holding Inc. et al. (MIAX) attained five victories within two weeks before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. In successive final written decisions issued in October, the PTAB declared that five Nasdaq patents related to electronic securities trading systems are invalid under 35 U.S.C. Section 101. Section 101 defines patent-eligible subject matter. The PTAB determined that all five Nasdaq patents (U.S. Patent Nos. 6,618,707; 7,246,093; 7,921,051; 7,747,506; and 8,386,371) were directed to abstract ideas, which are excluded fro ..read more