The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System ("FRB") and the FDIC announced the completion of their reviews of the second round of resolution plans submitted by 11 large, complex banking organizations in 2013. Each resolution plan, commonly known as a "living will plan," must describe the company's strategy for effecting a rapid and orderly resolution in the event of material financial distress or failure of the company. The 11 banking organizations in the first group of filers included Bank of America, Bank of New York Mellon, Barclays, Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Goldman

The Futures Industry Association ("FIA") and the FIA Principal Traders Group ("PTG") sent a comment letter to the CFTC urging it to leverage existing resources in developing a "21st-century surveillance system." In the letter, FIA and FIA PTG recommended five core requirements for surveillance modernization, which were as follows: delegating "front-line surveillance" to exchanges; increasing the quantitative and analytical expertise of the CFTC's staff to allow them to better understand increasingly complex data; surveying cross-market activities using existing large trader and daily

FINRA issued a regulatory notice regarding an amendment to FINRA Rule 9210 to modify the definition of "Hearing Officer." The new definition includes any former FINRA employee who (i) previously acted as a Hearing Officer and (ii) is a licensed attorney. The previous rule limited the definition of "Hearing Officer" to current FINRA employees. This authorizes the Chief Hearing Officer to appoint former FINRA employees who acted previously as Hearing Officers to fulfill adjudicative responsibilities. A former employee who is appointed as a Hearing Officer will be subject to the same FINRA rules

The MSRB announced new officers and Board of Directors ("Board ") members, all of whom who will begin their terms on October 1, 2014. The Board makes policy decisions, authorizes rulemaking and oversees the MSRB's operations. New members of the Board elected at the Board's meeting last week represent both the public and municipal securities firms regulated by the MSRB. The Board also elected individuals from four regulated entities. See : MSRB Press Release.

FINRA filed an extension with the SEC delaying SEC action on FINRA's proposed rule change to amend the definitions of "public" and "non-public" arbitrator. FINRA is extending the time for SEC action until October 1, 2014. Se e: Extension No. 1. Related news : SIFMA Submits Comments on FINRA-Proposed Rule Regarding Definitions of "Non-Public" and "Public" Arbitrator (July 25, 2014) FINRA-Proposed Rule Change Relating to Revisions to Definitions of "Non-Public" and "Public" Arbitrator (Fed. Reg.) (July 3, 2014); FINRA Proposes Rule Change Relating to Revisions to Definitions of "Non-Public" and