FINRA ordered Wells Fargo Advisors and Wells Fargo Advisors Financial Network, two broker-dealers under common control, to pay a fine for anti-money laundering ("AML") failures. According to FINRA, the firms' Customer Identification Program ("CIP") contained a design flaw that, over the course of nine years, created a deficiency in the way in which the transaction-processing system assigned customer identifiers to new accounts. The glitch resulted in the firms' failure to conduct customer identity verification for nearly 220,000 of such accounts. FINRA imposed a joint fine of $1.5 million on

The CFTC announced that Judge Hellerstein of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York ordered Royal Bank of Canada ("RBC") to pay a penalty for engaging in more than 1,000 illegal wash sales, fictitious sales and noncompetitive transactions involving stock futures contracts over a three-year period. The Court found that RBC knowingly executed sales of narrow-based stock index futures and single stock futures contracts as block trades through its branches and international trading accounts, trading opposite of two of RBC's offshore subsidiaries and executed on the

The CFTC Division of Clearing and Risk ("DCR") issued extensions of no-action relief to four foreign clearing organizations: ASX Clear (Futures) Pty Limited, Clearing Corporation of India Ltd., Korea Exchange, Inc. and OTC Clearing Hong Kong Limited. Each extension letter states that the DCR will not recommend enforcement action against that particular clearing organization for failing to register as a derivatives clearing organization ("DCO"), pursuant to CEA Section 5b(a). The relief is effective until the earlier of December 31, 2015, or the date upon which the CFTC exempts the clearing

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation ("FDIC") issued guidance regarding the submission of resolution plans to the agency by insured depository institutions with assets greater than $50 billion. Covered institutions are required to provide resolution plans that would enable the FDIC, as receiver under the Federal Deposit Insurance Act, to resolve the institutions, in the event of their failure. The intention is to resolve the institution in an orderly manner to ensure that depositors are given prompt access to insured deposits, maximized returns from the failed institution's assets, and

The SEC announced that Gary Barnett and Gary Goldsholle have been named as deputy directors in the Division of Trading and Markets. Lofchie Comment: Both Mr. Barnett and Mr. Goldsholle have significant regulatory experience at other agencies: Mr. Barnett, at the CFTC, and Mr. Goldsholle, at FINRA and the MSRB, where he served as General Counsel during a period in which the MSRB was extremely active in refashioning the regulation of the municipals market. Mr. Barnett also has a great deal of experience in the private sector, including his having been a partner at Cadwalader. See: Press Release