CoinDesk recently published insights from Laurie Rosini on why banks bringing deposits onto blockchain rails are likely to rely on permissioned environments rather than fully open networks.

Laurie explains how tokenized deposits differ from stablecoins, including the ongoing relationship between a bank and its depositors and the compliance, sanctions and privacy requirements that limit how freely deposit tokens can circulate. She also explores how interoperability could allow separate permissioned networks to connect, creating infrastructure where bank money and other tokenized financial assets can move across compatible rails while maintaining identity, compliance and privacy controls.

Read the full article here.

McDermott Will & Schulte was featured in The Lawyer for its representation of institutional investor shareholders in a securities claim against British American Tobacco (BAT), led by London Managing Partner Aymen Mahmoud and disputes partner and Co-Head of the London Trial Group Jack Thorne.

Speaking with The Lawyer, Aymen highlighted the Firm’s focus on this developing area: “Securities litigation is fast-growing in this jurisdiction and is a key focus area for our London disputes practice, particularly given our market-leading investment management practice.”

Read the full The Lawyer article >>
Subscription may be required

Jamie Gelfman and Dane Chapman authored a Practical Law State Q&A guide examining the rules that govern non-physician practitioners (NPPs) in Florida, covering advanced practice registered nurses, physician assistants, and licensed clinical social workers.
 
The guide walks through the full lifecycle of NPP regulation in the state — from initial licensing and biennial renewal requirements through scope-of-practice authority, physician supervision limits, and non-compete enforceability.

Partner Natallia Karniyevich co-authored an International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP) analysis examining the European Commission’s proposed Cloud and AI Development Act (CADA) and its potential implications for cloud providers and users.

The authors explain how CADA would introduce four assurance levels for cloud services, with requirements addressing data localization, third-country access, cybersecurity certification, and EU control. While initially focused on the public sector, the proposal could also affect private companies in highly critical sectors regulated under NIS2. The article outlines steps providers and users can take now, including mapping where data is stored, who controls cloud providers, which jurisdictions can access data, and which assurance levels may apply.

Read the full IAPP article >>
Subscription may be required

Tax Counsel Elizabeth Spencer spoke with Tax Journal about her work at McDermott Will & Schulte, lessons from her career in tax and recent developments in UK tax policy.

Discussing what she has learned during her career, Elizabeth said, “Get comfortable with never feeling like you completely know all there is to know about tax.”

She also reflected on the variety of her practice, from transactions and advisory work to contentious matters, and discussed the opportunities that constantly evolving tax legislation can create for lawyers to develop expertise early in their careers.

Read the full Tax Journal article >>
Subscription may be required

Managing Partner Aymen Mahmoud spoke with the Financial Times about the growing role of private credit in Europe and its increasing importance to institutional investors and borrowers.

Aymen discussed how private fixed income can provide institutional investors with long-dated, contracted cash flows and how private credit is becoming a more established part of the financing landscape.

“At that scale, private credit should actually stop being described as an alternative market and instead become a part of the ordinary financing toolkit,” he said.

Read the full Financial Times article >>
Subscription may be required

In a recent Mergers & Acquisitions article, Robert Rizzo shared insights on how family offices are increasingly pursuing direct investments and control deals in the middle market, moving beyond their traditional role as co-investors alongside private equity funds.

“Today, they are very sophisticated,” Robert said, noting that many family offices have built investment teams with professionals who previously worked at private equity firms. As a result, they are increasingly pursuing many of the same opportunities as traditional private equity investors, including smaller transactions.

Robert also highlighted the appeal of direct investing for family offices, which can provide greater control over investments and more favorable economics by eliminating the fees associated with investing through a private equity fund.

McDermott Will & Schulte was featured in The Lawyer about the Firm’s plans to host its inaugural European trainee retreat next year, building on the success of its global associate retreat.

London Managing Partner and European Head of Finance Aymen Mahmoud discussed the Firm’s focus on creating meaningful connections across offices and investing in the development of its trainees.

“We want our trainees to become exceptional lawyers, of course, but also to see and feel that they are part of one firm, one community and one culture,” he said.

Read more in The Lawyer,
Subscription may be required.

Law360 Tax Authority recently featured Richard Call’s insights on a Massachusetts Appellate Tax Board decision holding that federal law shields a combined-group member’s receipts from being pulled into the tax liabilities of its unitary group, a ruling that may spur further challenges to states’ combined reporting rules.

The case centered on the Massachusetts Department of Revenue’s “Reallocation Rule,” which uses a Finnigan-style approach to sourcing receipts within a combined group. Under that rule, the department had reassigned the in-state sales of a group member protected by P.L. 86-272 to other, taxable members of the group, in effect increasing the tax owed on income the federal statute is designed to shield. The Board rejected that approach, finding that P.L. 86-272’s protections apply on a member-by-member basis and that the state could not achieve indirectly what it was barred from doing directly. Richard discussed why the decision could prompt similar challenges in other combined reporting states that have leaned on comparable sourcing rules to work around the federal law’s protections.

Law360 Tax Authority recently featured Steve Kranz’s work in David Brunori’s “SALT in Review” column, which highlighted a corporate taxpayer’s win against a Nebraska tax assessment and a constitutional challenge in Oregon among the week’s most noteworthy state and local tax developments. Steve, along with colleagues Michael Hilkin and Mark Nebergall, received a shoutout in the column for the team’s work pushing back against government tax overreach.

The column pointed to McDermott’s success obtaining a Nebraska district court ruling requiring the state’s Department of Revenue to rethink its apportionment of a client’s corporate income tax liability, after the department improperly considered the client’s foreign earnings to boost the assessment. It also recognized the firm’s recently filed lawsuit on behalf of the Utah Taxpayers Association challenging the constitutionality of Utah’s new targeted advertising tax, one of several fronts on which Steve, Michael, and Mark are currently pressing back against state tax measures they view as government overreach.