SEC Commissioner Daniel Gallagher discussed automatic disqualifications and waivers under federal securities laws. He raised this discussion at the 37th Annual Conference on Securities Regulation and Business Law. Commissioner Gallagher explained that disqualifications can be at the SEC's discretion or may be triggered automatically; for example, upon the entry of a court-ordered injunction or an order in an administrative proceeding, whether through a settlement or following a trial. The Commissioner also pointed out that, for many disqualification provisions, "the legislative and regulatory

The Board of IOSCO met in Seoul to discuss policy, organizational structure and strategic priorities for 2015. The IOSCO Board outlined its priorities for 2015, which included: implementing margin requirements for non-cleared OTC derivatives; proposing new mandates on secondary bond market liquidity and order routing incentives; creating tools to identify risks and vulnerabilities in market based financing; reviewing updates from the UK Financial Conduct Authority about their fair and effective markets review and opportunities for IOSCO to better understand the role it might play in realizing

The Office of Financial Research ("OFR") published a working paper titled "Process Systems Engineering as a Modeling Paradigm for Analyzing Systemic Risk in Financial Networks." The paper proposes a methodology to quantify systemic risk. More specifically, it proposes that signed directed graphs ("SDGs"), modeling methodologies that are used extensively in process systems engineering, can be used to create frameworks that (i) address the cause and effect of financial instability feedback loops and (ii) can automate the identification and monitoring of potential vulnerabilities. More generally

The SEC held its first Investor Advisory Committee meeting of 2015. SEC Chair Mary Jo White delivered the opening remarks on developments undertaken by the SEC and issues on which it intends to focus in 2015.

The U.S. House Committee on Agriculture held a hearing to review the futures, options and swaps markets overseen by the CFTC. CFTC Chair Timothy Massad was the sole witness. Chair Massad focused his testimony on the CFTC's key priorities for 2015 and on reviewing what it has accomplished since his time as Chair began. Chair Massad stated that the CFTC intends to make markets work for commercial end users and has undertaken actions to achieve this goal. The actions include, among other things: (i) proposing a rule on margin for uncleared swaps; (ii) amending its rules for transactions with