By a 45-15 vote, the House Financial Services Committee approved the Secure and Fair Enforcement Banking Act of 2019 (the "SAFE Banking Act"). The legislation provides a safe harbor from federal money laundering and regulatory prohibitions for financial institutions and banks that supply financial services to cannabis-related legitimate businesses. The SAFE Banking Act, which has 150 sponsors, has yet to be scheduled for consideration by the full U.S. House of Representatives. The Judiciary Committee will likely consider the bill before it is voted upon. As previously covered, the Safe Banking

SEC Chair Jay Clayton addressed the impact of the European Union's MiFID II research provisions on the availability of investment research to funds and their advisers. In remarks delivered to the SEC Investor Advisory Committee, Mr. Clayton said that in 2017, the SEC issued temporary no-action relief to permit broker-dealers to receive hard dollar payments for research, to the extent required by MiFID II, without having to register under the Investment Advisers Act. Since then, Mr. Clayton noted, certain market solutions have been developed that may make it "unnecessary" to extend the relief

National Futures Association ("NFA") reminded swap dealers of their obligation to report swap valuation disputes exceeding $20 million in value. In particular, NFA said that all member swap dealers, including those relying on "substituted compliance" regarding CFTC Rule 23.502(c), must satisfy the filing requirements outlined in NFA's Interpretive Notice to Compliance Rule 2-49, which became effective on January 29, 2018.

The SEC charged the former chief operating officer ("COO") of a registered investment adviser for allegedly overbilling the firm's clients. According to the Complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, the former COO allegedly stole roughly $6 million from the investment adviser. The SEC alleged that as part of the fraudulent scheme, the former COO misused his role as the investment adviser's COO to overbill clients approximately $750,000 over the course of seven years. The COO was charged with aiding and abetting the investment adviser's violations of the

Federal Reserve Board Vice Chair for Supervision Randal Quarles shared a set of core principles and work priorities for the Financial Stability Board ("FSB"). In remarks delivered at the Joint Conference of the European Central Bank and the Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Mr. Quarles set forth the following key principles that will strengthen the FSB's work: (i) engagement, (ii) rigor and (iii) analysis. Mr. Quarles stated that the FSB must consistently engage with a broad range of stakeholders and experts to perform sufficient analysis, and warned that there could be another crisis if