Pub. 2 2021 Issue 5

The Cyber Threat Landscape is increasingly prominent in the news, represented by the major security breaches of SolarWinds and Colonial Gas. In recent years, the United States federal government has passed many bills related to Cybersecurity. One of the most comprehensive actions was just recently enacted in the Executive Order signed by President Biden on May 12, 2021 – “Executive Order on Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity.”

The use of LIBOR is drawing to an end. For decades, financial institutions have used LIBOR (the London Interbank Offered Rate) as the prevailing reference rate for determining interest rates in commercial and financial transactions. As a response to the manipulation of LIBOR almost a decade ago, the United Kingdom’s Financial Conduct Authority (the FCA) announced in 2017 it did not expect LIBOR to be an acceptable benchmark for floating interest rates beyond 2021.

The IRS is expected to release new IRA model documents soon. When that happens, all IRA trustees, custodians, and issuers will most likely be required to amend the new IRS model document or use the new IRS language in their prototype documents. And going forward, all newly established IRAs will need to use the new document or language.

Here’s something you haven’t heard yet from the pandemic, economic shutdown, record stimulus, heroic Paycheck Protection Program efforts, and flight-to-quality dynamics of the past 18 months: your community bank is probably sitting on a record-high length of average maturities in its bond portfolio. And it’s gotten there in a hurry.

In recent years, secured creditors have become more familiar with using receivers as one method of protecting and liquidating collateral. In 2016, Missouri enacted the Missouri Commercial Receivership Act (MCRA), which provided a comprehensive statutory framework for receiverships.

COVID-19 was an experiment in forced change, and now that we’re transitioning into a new norm, we’re grappling with what’s next. We know we cannot just backtrack to where we were in early 2020; we need to develop a new, post-pandemic mindset. And that means as employers, we have a brave new world of hiring to navigate.