The SEC charged an investment firm with violating the market access rule in connection with a trading incident that resulted in the erroneous execution of options contracts. An SEC investigation found that Goldman Sachs did not have adequate safeguards to prevent it from sending approximately 16,000 mispriced options orders to various options exchanges in less than an hour once the firm implemented new electronic trading functionality designed to match internal options orders with client orders. Lofchie Comment: This kind of enforcement action is puzzling and ill-considered. In this case, a

The American Council of Life Insurers ("ACLI") submitted a statement to the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Subcommittee criticizing the Department of Labor's proposed fiduciary duty rule. The ACLI statement was submitted at a Subcommittee hearing titled "Restricting Access to Financial Advice: Evaluating the Costs and Consequences for Working Families and Retirees." According to ACLI, the Department of Labor's proposed fiduciary rule will "restrict activities that encourage low-to-moderate-income Americans to save, stifle the formation of small business workplace benefit plans, and

FINRA filed a proposal with the SEC to remove Rule 4553, which governs fees for alternative trading system ("ATS") data, from the FINRA rulebook. See: Text of Proposed Rule.

FINRA filed a proposed rule change with the SEC to replace the Equity Trader registration category and qualification examination (Series 55) with a Securities Trader registration category and qualification examination (Series 57). Additionally, the proposed rule would establish a Securities Trader Principal registration category. See: Text of Proposed Rule Change.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency released a report providing an overview of various risks facing the banking industry. The report, "Semiannual Risk Perspective for Spring 2015," contains an analysis of data in four key areas: the operating environment, bank conditions, key risk issues and regulatory actions. Highlights from the report include the following: for the banking industry to identify and mitigate their associated risks, evolving cyber threats and information technology vulnerabilities require heightened awareness and appropriate controls; competition for limited lending