Commercial Litigation Update

The Supreme Court decided two cases today, and though neither of them presents the sort of widely consequential matter that, say, the President's student loan forgiveness plan that was argued this morning does, each has interesting aspects. Both are decided on the now-vogueish doctrine of textualism, though each shows divisions among the Justices that prove again that not only can Justices who have differing jurisprudential philosophies agree with one another as to statutory meaning, but that Justices with the same jurisprudential philosophy can disagree with one another on text as well. Thus, while there are cases, like Dobbs, where one might accurately predict the outcome on the basis of philosophy or alignment with the preferences of the President who nominated various Justices, there is a host of cases where labels don't hold up at all.

On June 30, 2021, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (“FinCEN”), issued the first government-wide Priorities for anti-money laundering (“AML”) and countering the financing of terrorism (“CFT”) policy (the “Priorities”). In accordance with the Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2020 (“AMLA 2020”), FinCEN established the Priorities, after consulting with the Attorney General, and various Federal regulators, to assist covered financial institutions, (which include, banks, brokers-dealers, mutual funds, insurance companies, commodities ...