The SEC approved FINRA-proposed amendments to its manual under "The Code of Arbitration Procedure for Customer Disputes" and "The Code of Arbitration Procedure for Industry Disputes," which jointly govern the payments that FINRA makes to its arbitrators for the services they provide to FINRA's dispute resolution forum, and the fees assessed to the parties for arbitration proceedings. The new amendments increase the honoraria arbitrators receive for participating in hearing sessions, serving as a chairperson, deciding contested subpoena motions, and deciding simplified arbitration cases. To

In the latest installment of the Energy Metro Desk series "Drums along the Potomac," editor-in-chief John Sodergreen reported on the recent CFTC open meeting which resulted in "modest" proposals to CFTC rules. During the open meeting, the CFTC proposed "policy tweaks" to various Dodd-Frank rules that Mr. Sodergreen called "burdensome." The rule proposals involved the residual interest deadline and recordkeeping relating to commodity interest and related cash or forward transactions. An additional item was the treatment of forward contracts with volumetric optionality, which the CFTC proposed

FINRA issued a Regulatory Notice requesting comment on a proposal to establish three "pay-to-play" rules. The proposed rules, which "respond" to Advisers Act Rule 206(4)-5 ("Political Contributions by Certain Investment Advisers"), would regulate the activities of member firms that engage in distribution or solicitation activities for compensation with government entities. Specifically the proposed rule affects investment advisers that "provide or are seeking to provide investment advisory services to such government entities within two years after a contribution to an official of the

FINRA filed with the SEC a proposal to adopt new FINRA Rule 2242 to address conflicts of interest relating to the publication and distribution of debt research reports. As anticipated, the proposed debt research rule is based on FINRA's existing equity research rule (NASD Rule 2711), but contains important modifications that FINRA considers necessary to reflect the differences between the equity and debt markets. First, the proposed debt research rule would adopt a "tiered approach" that distinguishes between debt research distributed to retail investors on the one hand, and institutional

FINRA filed with the SEC a proposed rule change to adopt, with modifications, NASD Rule 2711 ("Research Analysts and Research Reports") into the FINRA Rulebook and amend NASDRule 1050 ("Registration of Research Analysts") to create an exception from the research analyst qualification requirement. FINRA proposed to incorporate NASD Rule 2711 into new FINRA Rule 2241 with the following: minor changes to the definition of "investment banking services" to clarify that such services include all acts in furtherance of a public or private offering on behalf of an issuer; clarification of the