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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

In Securities and Exchange Commission v. ICOBox et al,[1] the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) alleges that defendant ICOBox and its founder, Nikolay Evdokimov violated Sections 5(a) and 5(c) of the Securities Act by selling $14.6 million in unregistered securities within and outside the United States.  ICOBox bills itself as an ICO[2] incubator…

Howard Womersley Smith, a Partner in Reed Smith’s FinTech practice recently published an article regarding EBA Outsourcing Guidelines and Operational Resilience, and gives his suggestions on what FinTech companies should be prioritizing in this current market.
Read the full article on FinTech Futures.