The SEC announced that Rhea Kemble Dignam will serve as senior counsel to the director of its Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations. Liban Jama will succeed Ms. Dignam as the SEC's new Director of the Atlanta Regional Office. Ms. Dignam and Mr. Jama are scheduled to begin their duties later this fall. See: SEC Announcement Regarding Ms. Dignam; SEC Announcement Regarding Mr. Jama.

The CFTC published the text of both the proposed rule regarding margin requirements for uncleared swaps and the final rule to exclude utility operations-related swaps with utility special entities from the de minimis threshold for swaps with special entities. The comment deadline for the proposed rule and the effective date for the final rule will be announced when the rules are published in the Federal Register, which is expected to happen soon. See: Text of the Proposed Margin Requirements Rule for Uncleared Swaps; Text of Final Rule on Swaps with Special Entity Utilities. Related news: CFTC

Multiple trade associations, including SIFMA, the American Bankers Associations, the Financial Services Roundtable and the Credit Union National Association (collectively, the "Associations"), submitted a joint letter to Congress, urging support for recently introduced bipartisan legislation that includes technical corrections to Dodd-Frank ( H.R. 5461). According to the Associations, the ongoing implementation of Dodd-Frank "has revealed unintended consequences that have adversely impacted job creation and economic growth." The Associations stated they believe that H.R. 5461, which contains

The SEC charged an investment advisory firm with breaching its fiduciary duty to a pair of private equity funds by sharing expenses between a company in one's portfolio and a company in the other's portfolio in a manner that improperly benefited one fund over the other. The adviser had integrated the two portfolio companies and managed them as one, even though the funds were separately advised and had distinct sets of investors. The Order found that one fund paid more than its fair share of joint expenses that benefited both funds, and that the adviser failed to adopt and implement written

The SEC charged a broker-dealer/investment adviser with failing to maintain controls to prevent one of its employees from insider trading, and tipping others, as to information concerning a public company that had been provided to one of the representative's customers. There are a variety of violations are cited in the attached order, most notably the failure of the firm to respond to the red flags of the event or to co-ordinate internally. See: SEC Order; SEC Press Release.