The SEC Division of Trading and Markets issued a no-action letter in response to a request from the Royal Bank of Canada ("RBC"). The no-action letter allows RBC and certain of its affiliates to conduct specified transactions outside the United States in RBC shares in connection with a proposed acquisition by RBC. The SEC granted the no-action relief, exempting RBC from Rules 101 and 102 of Regulation M. See: SEC No-Action Letter.

The senior financial supervisors from 10 countries who comprise the Senior Supervisors Group ("SSG") issued a report titled "Algorithmic Trading Briefing Note." The report assesses the risks associated with algorithmic trading, and identifies risk-based control principles and questions for supervisors and supervised firms to consider when assessing the current control environment. The report also is intended to "facilitate thoughtful dialogue and action" to improve risk management practices. The report highlights key supervisory concerns, including whether risks associated with algorithmic

The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System ("FRB") released its Semiannual Report on Banking Applications Activity. The report provides aggregate information on proposals that are filed by banking organizations and reviewed subsequently by the FRB. See: Semiannual Report on Banking Applications Activity; FRB Press Release.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York announced that Executive Vice President and head of the Financial Institution Supervision Group Sarah Dahlgren will resign at the end of 2015. See: New York Fed. Press Release.

According to a new article published by Mercatus Scholars Eli Dourado and Andrea Castillo, federal agencies that soon may oversee new data extraction and management responsibilities under the proposed Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act reported an "alarming" number of security breaches in Fiscal Year 2014. The article, titled "Agencies Fail 2014 Cyber Report Card and Report Record Number of IT Breaches," uses data from the Office of Management and Budget's FY 2014 Federal Information Security Management Act Compliance Report (the "Report") to analyze each agency's share, type and number of