Law Commons^™

Developments In The Law Affecting Electronic Payments And Financial Services, Sarah Jane Hughes, Stephen T. Middlebrook, Tom Kierner

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This short article surveys developments in the law affecting electronic payments and financial services from June 1, 2017 to June 1, 2018. During this period, significant developments occurred that affected the regulation of initial coin offerings (ICOs), the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s proposal to issue “special purpose national bank charters” to FinTech companies, the CFPB’s final regulation of prepaid, general-purpose cards, state regulation of payroll cards, and how lawyers taking cryptocurrencies from clients as payment for services or for safekeeping should protect them. The survey also presents newly issued BitLicenses under the New York Department of Financial …

Property, Agency, And The Blockchain: New Technology, And Longstanding Legal Paradigms, Sarah Jane Hughes

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This article, presented first as the keynote address at the February 2019 Symposium “The Emerging Blockchain and the Law” at Wayne State, explores the need for repetitive considerations of how blockchain technology affects our traditional concepts of property and agency. The article concludes that well-tested norms of property and agency may matter more, not less, when new technologies such as blockchain are used.

More Steps Toward Fully Electronic Interbank Check Collection And Return: Amendments To Federal Reserve Board Regulation Cc And A Regulatory Resolution Of A Circuit Split, Sarah Jane Hughes

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This article analyzes two actions in 2017 and 2018, respectively, by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System that amend Regulation CC, which governs expedited deposit availability and collection of checks generally and implements the Expedited Funds Availability Act of 1987 and the Check Clearing for the 21st Century Act of 2003. It selects examples from the two sets of amendments that highlight regulatory strategies being used by the Board to facilitate faster payments through the movement of electronic images of checks or electronic information among banks in the check-collection process. Those strategies involve creation of new forms …

"Gatekeepers" Are Vital Participants In Anti-Money-Laundering Laws And Enforcement Regimes As Permission-Less Blockchain-Based Transactions Pose Challenges To Current Means To "Follow The Money", Sarah Jane Hughes

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Two phenomena dominate reports about blockchain-based transactions—that they will disrupt and displace legacy banking, securities, and trade intermediaries, and that they present new or greater opportunities for hiding proceeds of crimes or corruption. This essay does not deal with the former topic. Rather, the organizers of the symposium at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia School of Law asks me to consider the latter question. It proved to be a tough assignment.

This essay looks at the separate questions of (1) the degree to which permission-less blockchain transactions will disrupt current anti-money laundering (AML) regimes and enforcement efforts, and (2) what …