CFTC Chair Timothy Massad testified before the European Parliament Committee on Economics in Brussels, Belgium. In his testimony, he stressed the need to reconcile differences between the United States and European Union's rules on futures margin methodology, especially regarding the amount of margin that must be turned over to a clearinghouse. According to Chair Massad, the CFTC has created an effective substituted compliance framework to augment the existing program for recognizing EU central clearing counterparties ("CCPs"). If the jurisdictions can work through the rest of their

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network ("FinCEN") fined Ripple Labs Inc. and its wholly owned subsidiary, XRP II, LLC (collectively, "Ripple Labs"), for acting as a money services business and selling its virtual currency without maintaining an adequate AML program. In addition to paying a civil monetary penalty, Ripple Labs agreed to engage in "remedial steps" to ensure future compliance with AML obligations. Previously, FinCEN issued guidance that clarified the applicability of regulations implementing the Bank Secrecy Act, as well as the requirement for certain participants in the virtual

SIFMA submitted a comment letter to the SEC. In the letter, SIFMA expressed its support of recent BATS-proposed rule amendments involving Regulation NMS. In January 2015, BATS requested that the SEC adopt amendments to Regulation NMS Rules 600(b)(57) ("NMS Security Designation and Definitions"), 605 ("Disclosure of Order Execution Information"), 606 ("Disclosure of Order Routing Information") and 610(c) ("Access to Quotations"). According to SIFMA, the BATS-requested amendments would result in: tiered access fees starting at $0.0005 per share (5 cents per 100 hundred shares); increased order

The Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee of the U.S. Committee on Appropriations held a hearing titled "FY16 Budget Requests for the SEC CFTC." SEC Chair White and CFTC Chair Massad each testified about their agency's funding request and budget justification. In her testimony, Chair White indicated that security-based swaps, crowdfunding and executive compensation rulemakings are priorities for the SEC in 2015. She also stated that the SEC is discussing the creation of public guidelines on whether enforcement cases should be brought to administrative law judges or federal

SIFMA and ISDA (together, the "Associations") submitted a comment letter to the SEC. In the letter, the Associations discussed the proposed rules, rule amendments and guidance in Regulation SBSR. The Associations noted that ISDA had submitted comments previously; however, because of an administrative error, the rule text of Final SBSR and Proposed SBSR were finalized and approved before full SEC staff review. The Associations stated that their most recent comment letter is intended to reiterate and further clarify any remaining concerns about the SBSR requirements. The letter outlines the