The SEC issued a no-action relief letter waiving the mandatory retention of a risk interest, as ordinarily required under Section 15G ("Credit Risk Retention") of the Securities and Exchange Act. The no-action relief was issued in connection with a refinancing of collateralized loan obligation where the transaction had been originally priced prior to the December 2014 publication of the credit risk retention rules. See: SEC No-Action Relief Response.

The SEC announced a $3 million dollar whistleblower award to a company insider whose information helped the SEC "crack a complex fraud." According to the SEC, this payout is the third highest award to date under the SEC's Whistleblower program. Since its inception, the SEC "has paid more than $50 million to 18 whistleblowers." Approximately $47 million of the payments have been made to just three of the whistleblowers, including this one. See: SEC Press Release. See also: Exchange Act Rule 21-F.

SIFMA expressed public support for FINRA's recent proposal to change the format for the representative-level qualification examination. FINRA solicited comments on a concept proposal to restructure the current representative-level qualification examination program into a format whereby all potential representative-level registrants would take (i) a general knowledge examination and (ii) an appropriate specialized knowledge examination to reflect their particular registered role. In response, SIFMA stated, among other things, that: (i) the proposed changes will make FINRA's examination program

The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System ("FRB") proposed a modification of its capital planning and stress testing regulations for large bank holding companies and certain other banks that have more than $10 billion in consolidated assets. If adopted, the changes would begin with the 2016 capital plan and stress testing cycles. Comments on the proposed rulemaking must be submitted by September 24, 2015.

FINRA solicited comment on a proposal to create a new academic Trade Reporting and Compliance Engine reg; ("TRACE") data set that would include masked market participant identifiers. The TRACE data product would only be available to academics from an institution of higher education, would enable researchers to track activity by individual dealers or groups of dealers and would allow academics to observe dealers' behaviors with measures such as intermediation costs, dealer participation and liquidity. Comments must be submitted by September 14, 2015. See:FINRA Reg. Notice 15-26; FINRA Press