February 3, 2017, Covington Alert

Throughout his campaign, President Donald Trump promised to curtail financial regulations, particularly those promulgated under the Dodd-Frank Act. President Trump argued frequently that the regulations issued under the act have proven overly burdensome and, among other things, limited job growth. This afternoon, the President took his first formal step in implementing his deregulatory agenda. He signed an executive order that will set in motion a comprehensive review of all financial regulatory requirements—including but not limited to those resulting from Dodd-Frank—and he issued a memorandum to the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) ordering a 180-day postponement of its “fiduciary rule” and directing an analysis of whether the rule should be rescinded or revised.

January 30, 2017

WASHINGTON—Covington represented India-based Piramal Enterprises and its wholly owned Critical Care subsidiary in the UK in its agreement to acquire a portfolio of intrathecal spasticity and pain management drugs from Mallinckrodt LLC.  The purchase price was $171 million, plus an earn-out of up to an additional $32 million. This is the third acquisition that ...

April 27, 2016, Covington Alert

In late April 2016, federal financial regulators began the process of re-proposing rules (the “Proposal”) to implement restrictions on incentive-based compensation required by Section 956 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (the “Dodd-Frank Act”). Section 956 directs a number of federal regulators (the “Agencies”) to jointly issue regulations or guidelines with respect to incentive-based compensation practices at specific types of financial institutions that have $1 billion or more in assets.

The Proposal comes more than five years after the Agencies initially proposed rules to implement Section 956 (the “2011 Proposal”). In addition to refining the 2011 Proposal, the Proposal incorporates and expands upon principles relating to incentive compensation set forth in the federal banking agencies’ 2010 interagency guidance implementing safety and soundness standards under Section 39 of the Federal Deposit Insurance Act (the “2010 Guidance”).