The SEC announced that Jason S. Patil began work at the SEC on September 22, 2014 as an Administrative Law Judge. With Mr. Patil's hiring, the SEC has nearly doubled the staff of the Office of the Administrative Law Judges this year. See: SEC Press Release.

The SEC announced an expected award of more than $30 million to a whistleblower who provided the SEC with key original information that led to a successful enforcement action. The award will be the largest made by the SEC's whistleblower program to date, and the fourth award to a whistleblower living in a foreign country. Bondi Comment: The size of the award provided under the SEC whistleblower bounty program may be a game changer. Prior to today, the awards have been significant, but relatively modest. Undoubtedly, today's bounty will spark "whistleblowers" – some with legitimate information

The CME's Business Conduct Committee issued disciplinary actions against a number of individual and institutional traders for various infractions of its rules, including those relating to supervision regarding the conduct of its employees. Two of the actions involved FCMs and are summarized below. In CBOT 11-8056-BC, the CME imposed a fine of $65,000 against a member firm for violating its wash trade Rule 534. The firm executed numerous transactions in multiple Micro FX futures contract markets and the S&P 500 Select Sector Index futures product suite, wherein orders for the trading groups'

UK HM Revenue Customs (HMRC) recently issued a revised version of its Guidance Notes for implementation and interpretation of the Intergovernmental Agreement between the UK and the United States. This latest version supersedes Guidance Notes published in February 2014 and reflects several changes to U.S. Treasury Regulations that were recently issued. Among changes, the new Guidance includes references to all eight types of Deemed-Compliant Financial Institutions in the final Treasury Regulations and reflects changes made to the terms of the Certified Deemed-Compliant status for Limited Life

The SEC charged an individual with facilitating an insider trading scheme that involved the passing of illegal tips via napkins and Post-it Notes at Grand Central Terminal. According to the complaint, the middleman would meet the stockbroker in Grand Central, where the middleman would indicate which stock was to be traded on a Post-it Note or napkin and then chew up and eat the "communication." Lofchie Comment : Post-it Notes are actually a well-studied item in the history of business, as they were developed by a 3M employee who thought that the low stick adhesive used on their back was quite