Mercatus Scholar and former Congressional and SEC staff attorney Hester Peirce posted a commentary titled "Regulation in the Form of Big Bank Coercion." The commentary examines bank regulators' ability to "strong-arm" banks – an ability that, in Ms. Peirce's words, "sidesteps the regulatory processes designed to ensure accountability, public input, and transparency." In her commentary, Ms. Peirce discusses the recent effort by the Financial Stability Board ("FSB") to "force" contractual changes in short-term borrowing arrangements, known as repo agreements, among financial institutions. Ms

CFTC Chair Timothy Massad spoke at the DerivOps North America conference. In his speech, he provided updates regarding the CFTC swaps market framework and a potential proposed rule about the reporting workflow that surrounds cleared swaps. Chair Massad began by highlighting the CFTC's progress, but stated that more work needs to be done. He discussed some of the CFTC's key priorities, such as fine-tuning new rules, overseeing clearinghouses and maintaining a robust surveillance and enforcement program to prevent fraud and manipulation. Chair Massad reported that, going forward, the CFTC will

The SEC announced a whistleblower award of over a million dollars to a compliance professional who provided information that assisted an enforcement action against the whistleblower's company. The SEC stated that it gave the award to a compliance officer who had reason to believe that disclosure to the SEC was necessary. The officer's intention was to prevent imminent misconduct from causing substantial financial harm to the company or investors. Lofchie Comment: This SEC announcement prompts a few basic questions: Is it good public policy to pay whistleblower awards to compliance officers

The CFTC Division of Market Oversight and the Division of Clearing and Risk issued no-action time-limited relief to swap execution facilities ("SEFs") and designated contract markets ("DCMs") from certain CFTC rules. The relief allows trades that were voided because of certain errors to be corrected. The CFTC also issued relief from certain trade confirmation requirements for non-cleared swaps. Separately, the Division of Market Oversight issued no-action relief to SEFs from certain trade confirmation requirements for non-cleared swaps. According to the CFTC, the no-action letters support the

SIFMA submitted a comment letter to the SEC regarding MSRB-proposed amendments to Rule G-14 RTRS Procedures. In the letter, SIFMA commended MSRB on the "methodical manner" in which it obtained input on the proposed rule changes. However, SIFMA expressed concern about the costs of certain proposed changes relative to their assumed benefits – particularly changes to methods of flagging certain dealer compensation arrangements and the ATS indicator. Additionally, SIFMA emphasized that the benefits of the proposal will not "measure up" to the costs and burdens that it could impose on broker