The CFTC's Division of Market Oversight, Division of Swap Dealer & Intermediary Oversight, and Division of Clearing & Risk published examination priorities. The Division of Market Oversight ("DMO") will focus on "emerging areas of self-regulation, where regulatory requirements and best practices may still be developing." The DMO stated it will conduct examinations in the following areas: cryptocurrency surveillance practices; surveillance for disruptive trading; trade surveillance practices; block trade surveillance practices; market surveillance practices; real-time market monitoring

The MSRB proposed to amend Rule A-16 to establish an examination fee for the new Municipal Advisor Principal Qualification Examination ("Series 54"). Under the amendment, a municipal adviser would be assessed a fee of $150 per examination for each person associated with the adviser taking the test. The MSRB designated the amendment for immediate effectiveness.

The CFTC extension of the comment period to March 15, 2019 for swap execution facility rule proposals was published in the Federal Register ( see here and here). As previously covered, the extension covers both (i) the proposed rules concerning swap execution facilities and trade execution, and (ii) the request for comments regarding the practice of "post-trade name give-up."

FINRA staff provided interpretive guidance on FINRA Rule 2210, which imposes certain requirements on institutional communications. In an interpretive letter, FINRA staff stated that it does not object to the use of pre-inception index performance ("PIP") data in institutional communications concerning registered open-end investment companies. FINRA staff clarified that the interpretive letter does not impact its "long standing position that the presentation of hypothetical back-tested performance in communications used with retail investors does not comply with the content standards contained

A broker-dealer agreed to settle NASDAQ Stock Market LLC ("Nasdaq") charges of failing to "maintain a continuous two-sided trading interest . . . at prices within certain percentages away from the [National Best Bid or Offer]." According to the Letter of Acceptance, Waiver and Consent, OTA LLC ("OTA") allegedly failed to meet its market maker-quoting obligations because it failed to "continuously quote in the security" due to an internal system error that shut down quoting. Nasdaq found that while OTA's written supervisory procedures identified a designated supervisor responsible for carrying