The SEC order instituting proceedings to determine whether to approve or disapprove the FINRA proposal to adopt Rule 2242 was published in the Federal Register. Rule 2242 would address conflicts of interest relating to the publication and distribution of debt research reports. According to FINRA's proposal, the rule would adopt a tiered approach to provide retail debt research recipients with "extensive protections" similar to those provided to recipients of equity research under current and proposed FINRA rules, with modifications to reflect differences in the trading of debt securities. The

Senator Jack Reed (D-RI) reintroduced S.530, a bill that would require the President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to be appointed by the President of the United States and confirmed by the Senate. The bill has been referred to the Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs. S ee: S.530; Senator Reed's Press Release.

SEC Chief Economist and Director of the Division of Economic and Risk Analysis Mark Flannery delivered remarks at the Global Association of Risk Professionals' Risk Assessment Convention. His remarks concerned two kinds of risk assessment: (i) market misconduct and (ii) market-wide systemic risks. According to Mr. Flannery, the Corporate Issue Risk Assessment Program and the Broker-Dealer Risk Assessment Program both use analytical modeling tools to assist the SEC in investigating incidents of market misconduct. He noted that the SEC currently is extending risk models to identify a variety of

ISDA published a paper, titled "Improving Regulatory Transparency of Global Derivatives Markets: Key Principles." The paper provides a number of actions and key principles that stakeholders can utilize to improve regulatory transparency. According to ISDA, significant progress has been made already in improving regulatory transparency, since "virtually all" derivatives transactions are reported to trade repositories. However, due to the lack of standardization of reporting requirements across jurisdictions, challenges remain that lead to an unclear or partial picture of risk in global

The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System extended the comment period on its proposed rule to implement capital surcharges for the largest and most systemically important U.S. bank holding companies. Comments are now due by April 3, 2015. Related news: FRB Proposes Rules to Increase Capital Positions of Largest U.S. Bank Holding Companies (with Lofchie Comment) (December 9, 2014).