FINRA filed an amendment ("Amendment No. 1") to its proposed rule change to the FINRA Code of Arbitration Procedure for Customer Disputes and the Code of Arbitration Procedure for Industry Disputes. The SEC approved the rule change, as modified by Amendment No. 1, on an accelerated basis and is soliciting comments on the Amendment. The proposed rule provides that any document which a party files with FINRA and which contains an individual's social security number, taxpayer identification number or financial account number must be redacted to include only the last four digits of any of these

The FINRA Securities Industry/Regulatory Council on Continuing Education released the first podcast in a two-part series titled, "Spring 2014 Firm Element Advisory." In the podcast, FINRA identifies topics they believe firms should consider in their Firm Element training plans, including: anti-money laundering compliance; the accessibility of information in suspicious activity reports; advertising regulation issues; business continuity planning; issue allocations and distributions; expungement of information from the Central Registration Depository; and know-your-customer and suitability

The SEC Office of Investor Education and Advocacy issued an investor alert to help investors avoid fraudulent schemes that may be carried out through investor newsletters. According to the SEC, investor newsletters come in many forms and some are legitimate; however, some are also used to carry out schemes designed to deceive investors, including: touting or promoting a stock without properly disclosing compensation received for promoting the stock; "pump-and-dump" schemes that pump up a company's stock price by making false and misleading statements to create a buying frenzy and then sell

The IRS and the U.S. Treasury Department ("Treasury") published the initial list of foreign financial institutions ("FFIs") that registered with the IRS and were issued a Global Intermediary Identification Number ("GIIN"). FFIs are required to provide their GIIN to U.S. and non-U.S. withholding agents and such withholding agents are required to check the FFI list to verify the foreign entity's GIIN. The FFI list contains over 77,000 financial institutions initially and will be updated on the first of every month. The IRS announced that FFIs that have not yet registered with the IRS have until

A New York Federal Jury found a hedge fund manager at Wynnefield Capital Inc. ("Wynnefield") and two others not liable for an alleged $1.3 million insider trading scheme, marking the latest courtroom loss for the SEC. The SEC had claimed that the hedge fund manager bought stock illegally in an industrial products supplier after hearing from another Wynnefield employee that the supplier was about to be acquired. The other employee allegedly had learned the information from a former analyst who worked on the merger at underwriter General Electric Capital. Bondi Comment: This verdict is a