The House Financial Services Committee (FSC) released its upcoming hearing schedule for the week of November 16, 2015. The hearings will include the following: November 17 at 10 a.m. Monetary Policy and Trade Subcommittee hearing to examine the impact of the Dodd-Frank Act's requirement for public companies to report whether they source conflict minerals from the Democratic Republic of Congo and/or its nine neighboring countries. November 18 at 10 a.m. Oversight hearing with SEC Chair Mary Jo White to examine the SEC's agenda and operations. November 19 at 9:15 a.m. Oversight and

The CFTC filed a civil enforcement complaint charging a New Zealand forex broker and two of its agents with soliciting and accepting at least $50 million for off-exchange margined retail foreign currency trading, which the broker and agents effected without being registered with the CFTC. The CFTC reported that it is seeking "restitution, rescission, disgorgement, civil monetary penalties, trading and registration bans and permanent injunctions against further violations of the registration provisions of the CEA and CFTC Regulations."

FINRA settled charges with a discount retail brokerage firm of failing to (i) retain a large number of securities-related electronic records in the required format; (ii) to retain certain categories of outgoing emails; and (iii) to have a "reasonable supervisory system in place to achieve compliance with certain SEC and FINRA books and records rules, which contributed to its record-retention failures." Specifically, FINRA found that: the firm did not have centralized document-retention processes or procedures for all firm departments to follow; the firm did not give any member of the firm the

Representative Elijah E. Cummings (D-MD) expressed concerns about the SEC's proposed rule regarding waiver requests and security-based swaps ("SBS"), titled: "Applications by Security-Based Swap Dealers or Major Security-Based Swap Participants for Statutorily Disqualified Associated Persons to Effect or Be Involved in Effecting SBS’s." In a letter addressed to SEC Chair Mary Jo White, Representative Cummings stated that the proposed rule would "allow entities other than the SEC - including private entities - to grant waiver requests" and "constitute[s] the first time the [SEC] has granted

New SRO rules, rule proposals and NMS plans were announced by the SEC. Click on the links below to view the SEC's notices of exchange rule changes and proposals from November 9 to November 13. Fees, Fines, Rebates Claims: BATS: Notice of Filing and Immediate Effectiveness of a Proposed Rule Change Related to Fees (Release No. 34-76419; File No. SR-BATS-2015-99; November 10, 2015); see also Exhibit 5 BATS: Notice of Filing and Immediate Effectiveness of a Proposed Rule Change Related to Fees for BZX Options (Release No. 34-76411; File No. SR-BATS-2015-98; November 10, 2015); see also Exhibit 5