CFTC Chair Timothy Massad spoke at the Future Industry Association Conference in Boca Raton. In his keynote address, Chair Massad focused on ways the CFTC addresses clearinghouse resiliency. As clearinghouses become integral to the financial system, Chair Massad stated, the risks they pose to the system overall must be acknowledged and considered by regulators. He highlighted certain "increasing" concerns involving clearinghouses, including (i) assessing the adequacy of recovery plans, (ii) ensuring that clearinghouses have enough capitalization, or "skin in the game," and (iii) addressing

The Tax Section of the New York State Bar Association (the "Tax Section") submitted a report (the "NYSBA Report") providing comments and recommendations on proposals to reform the taxation of financial instruments. The proposals were contained in the "discussion draft" that was circulated by the House Ways and Means Committee on February 21, 2014, and included in the Obama Administration's FY2016 budget proposal. The NYSBA Report focused on the proposals that address the taxation of debt instruments, the mark-to-market treatment of derivatives, the calculation of securities bases and wash sale

The SEC announced that the federal district court in Philadelphia entered a preliminary injunction against two former employees of Capital One Financial Corporation ("Capital One") as part of a continuing litigation involving the operation of a fraudulent and "highly profitable" insider trading scheme. According to the SEC complaint filed in January, the defendants worked as data analysts for Capital One and had access to databases containing confidential information about the credit card activity of millions of customers. The defendants were able to aggregate the credit card purchases made by

The IRS updated the instructions to IRS Form 8938 ("Statement of Specified Foreign Financial Assets") to clarify the filing requirements for dual-resident taxpayers. Dual residents will not be required to file Form 8938 and report on their specified foreign financial assets if they complete the appropriate tax returns and comply with certain other filing requirements under applicable U.S. Treasury Department regulations. Generally, individual U.S. taxpayers are required to file IRS Form 8938 if they own certain specified foreign financial assets the value of which in the aggregate exceeds

SEC Commissioner Daniel Gallagher spoke at the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority conference in New York. He talked about liquidity, market structure and pension accounting risks in the fixed income markets. According to Commissioner Gallagher, dealer inventory and liquidity in the secondary markets have "dramatically decreased," despite record issuances of corporate bonds. He explained that, with a record-breaking amount of outstanding corporate debt and dealers unable to commit capital or hold inventories, "there is a real liquidity crisis brewing." Commissioner Gallagher explained that