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The Market Participants Division of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) on December 19, 2025 issued CFTC Letter No. 25-50 (the Letter) providing that it will not recommend enforcement action against an investment adviser registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that operates a commodity pool offered solely to investors who are “qualified eligible persons” (QEPs)1 where such investment adviser either does not register or withdraws its registration with the CFTC as a commodity pool operator (CPO).

Continue Reading CFTC Provides Registration Relief to Private Fund Industry

The Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (OIG) recently issued a report focused on what it characterized as concerning trends related to Medicare Part B claims submissions for skin substitutes, i.e., skin grafts. Skin substitutes have become a critical part of wound care and tissue regeneration and are increasingly a part of patient treatment plans. In the report, “Medicare Part B Payment Trends for Skin Substitutes Raise Major Concerns About Fraud, Waste, and Abuse,” the OIG highlights several billing and utilization patterns it views as consistent with fraud, waste, and abuse – signaling to the United States health care system that skin substitutes are now being closely scrutinized by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Department of Justice.

Continue Reading “Skyrocketing” Medicare Part B Claims Submissions on Skin Substitutes

In September 2025, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) took steps to crack down on anticompetitive employee non‑competes even as the FTC abandoned the Biden Administration’s efforts to broadly ban them by rule.  As a first step, on September 4, 2025, the FTC launched an inquiry seeking the public’s input on the prevalence and use of non-competes by employers, stating that “[w]ith the assistance of the employees and workers most burdened by them, the Trump-Vance FTC intends to uproot the worst offenders and restore fairness to the American labor market.”  The next day, the FTC filed a consent decree in an unfair competition action against Gateway Services, Inc. and a subsidiary, premised on its employee non-compete agreements.  The consent decree requires Gateway to stop enforcing non-competes binding its nearly 1800 workers.  On September 10, FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson issued warning letters to several undisclosed healthcare companies and staffing agencies for “includ[ing] noncompete agreements … in employment contracts that may unreasonably limit employment options for vital roles like nurses, physicians, and other medical professionals.”  And, on September 17, the FTC announced a workshop focused on “Protecting Workers from Anticompetitive Noncompete Agreements.” The workshop was to be held on October 8 but has been delayed because of the federal government shutdown.

Continue Reading FTC Again Targets Unfair Employee Non-Competes

On September 15, 2025, the Department of the Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service issued final regulations implementing key provisions of the SECURE 2.0 Act relating to Roth catch-up contributions. The final regulations focus primarily on requirements relating to the so-called mandatory Roth catch-up contributions for participants who made more than $145,000 in FICA wages from the plan sponsor in the prior calendar year.

Continue Reading Treasury and IRS Finalize Regulations for Roth Catch-Up Contributions Under SECURE 2.0

Last month, we posted an update describing Florida’s investigation into whether the CDP and the Science Based Targets Initiative are facilitating unlawful collusion among financial institutions and investment services to use an environmental “scoring system” to make investment decisions. On August 12, 2025, the Federal Trade Commission (the “FTC”) fired another warning shot across the bow of competitors who may seek to limit competition between themselves in the name of environmental stewardship. It secured written commitments from truck and engine manufacturers to disavow their agreement with California’s Air Resources Board (CARB) “to produce ‘zero emissions’ engines rather than internal combustion engines” in compliance with CARB regulations. Such agreements limited the output of trucks with internal combustion engines in violation of the Sherman Act and the FTC Act, according to the FTC. Furthermore, the FTC maintains that the agreements with CARB were not shielded from scrutiny by the Noerr-Pennington or state action doctrines in part because the manufacturers agreed to abide by the restrictions even if the CARB regulations were later declared to be unlawful—which eventually happened when Congress revoked CARB’s waivers from the Environmental Protection Agency.

The FTC investigation and settlement marks the latest example of the risk competitors undertake when they agree to coordinate their output or pricing activities in service of ESG goals.  Although the Biden Administration issued its own warnings that ESG objectives do not justify anticompetitive activity, the current Administration—and those politically aligned with it at the state level—view such efforts as inextricably linked with ESG efforts that should be condemned and rolled back. We will continue to update you on further developments in this space.

On July 21, 2025, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) announced its intention to postpone by two years the effective date of the final rule that it adopted on August 28, 2024 which adds registered investment advisers (RIAs) and exempt reporting advisers (ERAs) to the definition of “financial institution” under the Bank Secrecy Act.  The final rule thereby extends certain anti-money laundering/countering the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) program requirements to these advisers, requiring them to develop and implement a written AML/CFT program that is risk-based and reasonably designed to prevent the adviser from being used for money laundering, terrorist financing or other illicit finance activities. The final rule would have become effective, and compliance with the final rule would have been required by, January 1, 2026; however, FinCEN intends to postpone this to January 1, 2028.   

The announcement of the final rule’s postponed effective date states:

FinCEN recognizes…that the rule must be effectively tailored to the diverse business models and risk profiles of the investment adviser sector. FinCEN also recognizes that extending the effective date of the rule may help ease potential compliance costs for industry and reduce regulatory uncertainty while FinCEN undertakes a broader review of the [rule]. 

The announcement also states that during the postponement period, FinCEN intends to revisit the substance of the final rule through a future rulemaking process. 

In addition, FinCEN intends, together with the SEC, to revisit their May 13, 2024 jointly proposed rule under the Bank Secrecy Act that would impose new customer identification program (CIP) requirements on RIAs and ERAs.  Under the joint proposed rule, advisers would be required to establish, document and maintain written CIPs as part of their overall AML/CFT programs.

The Treasury Department’s announcement is available here.

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Florida’s Attorney General announced an investigation on July 28, 2025 into whether the CDP (formerly known as the Climate Disclosure Project) and the Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi) have violated consumer protection or antitrust laws by “coercing companies into disclosing proprietary data and paying for access under the guise of environmental transparency.”  According to the AG, the CDP charges companies to report, revise and promote their environmental disclosure data, “while selling services that allegedly improve scores and even offer favorable quotes from CDP executives for a price.”  The AG alleges that this scoring system is relied upon by investment companies to make financial decisions.  The investigation will, among other things, explore whether “CDP’s efforts to pressure or punish companies that don’t participate result in anticompetitive effects,” and whether “coordination between CDP, financial institutions, and investment services constitutes unlawful market manipulation.”

Continue Reading Florida AG Investigation Is Latest Reminder of Risk Tied to Green Initiatives

The FTC is designating July as “Made in America Month,” and manufacturers in all industries should understand the restrictions they face when marketing their products as produced in the US.  The Trump Administration’s tariffs will drive manufacturing further onshore and will increase the perceived value of marketing products as Made in the USA, in turn driving increased scrutiny of such claims.  The consequences for not complying with the FTC’s Made in the USA rules can be steep, including potential penalties of up to $50,120 per violation (for 2025) and a heightened risk that a competitor will sue for damages under § 43(a) of the Lanham Act.

Continue Reading FTC Highlights “Made in the USA” Standards for July

On June 9, 2025, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) released a memorandum establishing long-awaited guidance for the investigation and enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA).[1] The guidance was a direct result of President Trump’s February 10 Executive Order, signed on February 10, 2025, which directed the DOJ not to initiate new FCPA investigations or enforcement actions for 180 days, except where specifically authorized by senior DOJ officials.[2] The Order also required a detailed review of all ongoing FCPA matters and the issuance of updated enforcement guidelines. The President’s stated objectives were to prevent the FCPA from being “stretched beyond proper bounds,” to avoid enforcement that could harm U.S. economic competitiveness, and to ensure that FCPA actions do not undermine U.S. national security or foreign policy interests.[3]

The new guidelines, styled as a memorandum from the Deputy Attorney General to the attorney currently in charge of the DOJ Criminal Division (the “Memorandum”), signal a significant recalibration of FCPA enforcement priorities, with a focus on serious misconduct that can be attributed to specific individuals, national security threats, and conduct linked to transnational criminal organizations, while also seeking to limit undue burdens on U.S. companies operating abroad. Perhaps surprisingly, considering the doomsday scenarios that some anticorruption advocates had predicted, the new guidance signals a commitment to further FCPA enforcement, albeit with a narrower focus.

Continue Reading DOJ Issues New FCPA Enforcement Guidelines
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On June 9, 2025, Oregon Governor Tina Kotek signed into law Senate Bill 951 (the “2025 Act”).  Unlike California’s AB 3129, which was vetoed by California Governor Gavin Newsom in September 2024, the passage of the 2025 Act is the culmination of the state’s efforts to strengthen controls on health care transactions involving management services organizations (“MSOs”) and private equity investors.  The 2025 Act implements significant changes to Oregon’s existing corporate practice of medicine (“CPOM”) doctrine and materially affects existing arrangements between MSOs and the professional medical entities that they manage.  Significantly, the 2025 Act prohibits several material aspects of health care transactions that are standard in states that restrict CPOM. 

Continue Reading New Oregon Law Imposes Significant Corporate Practice of Medicine Restrictions