In a letter to U.S. Treasury Department ("Treasury") Secretary Steve Mnuchin, U.S. Representatives Maxine Waters (Chair of the House Financial Services Committee), Adam Schiff (Chair of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence) and Eliot Engel (Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee) requested documents related to the recent decision to terminate sanctions against three companies tied to designated Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. The Committee leaders asked Treasury to provide each of their respective committees copies of all relevant documents before February 5, 2019.

FINRA proposed increasing the amount of time for non-parties to respond to arbitrator subpoenas, orders of appearance of witnesses or orders for the production of documents. The proposed rule change would amend FINRA Rules 12512, 12513, 13512 and 13513. According to FINRA, the proposal is intended to allow non-parties adequate time to object to an order or subpoena.

FINRA proposed rule amendments to allow the publication of aggregated transaction information on non-disseminated TRACE-Eligible Securities. The proposed amendments to FINRA Rule 6750 (Dissemination of Transaction Information) provide supplementary material explaining that FINRA may "publish or distribute aggregated transaction information and statistics on TRACE-Eligible Securities that are not subject to dissemination . . . at no charge." The proposed amendments would allow for FINRA to publish, for example, "aggregated transaction information and statistics on trades in CMBSs and CDOs

FINRA proposed extending the implementation date for certain amendments to FINRA Rule 4210 ("Margin Requirements") relating to "Covered Agency Transactions." The implementation date is proposed to be extended from March 25, 2019, to March 25, 2020. In the filing, FINRA said it is considering further amendments to the requirements for "to be announced" or "TBA" transactions and other forward-settling agency securities transactions. FINRA noted that amendments related to the risk limit determination requirements ( see previous coverage) that became effective on December 25, 2016 will not be

Four public companies agreed to settle SEC charges of failing to keep internal control over financial reporting ("ICFR") for consecutive annual reporting periods. According to the SEC orders, each of the companies had disclosed material weaknesses in ICFR in their financial statements, but failed to remediate these weaknesses after being contacted by SEC staff. Specifically, the SEC alleged that: Grupo Simec S.A.B. de C.V. ("Grupo") ( see here for the SEC Order) failed to remediate material deficiencies in ICFR for 10 consecutive annual reporting periods from 2008 to 2017, and failed to