The Financial Stability Oversight Council ("FSOC") held a public conference on asset management "in order to help inform the ongoing assessment by the FSOC of risks to U.S. financial stability." The conference involved discussions by industry participants and other stakeholders on topics related to investment risk management, potential risks across the broader financial system, and operational issues and resolvability. Each panel discussion was moderated by a senior official of an FSOC member agency. Recent media reports have indicated that FSOC is considering whether to designate two asset

When President Obama appointed Mary Jo White as the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's Chair, he boasted, "You don't want to mess with Mary Jo." Chair White appeared to be trying to make good on the claim when, earlier this week at the 3rd Annual New York City Bar White Collar Crime Institute, she announced that "what is old is new," explaining that the SEC's new intention is to direct the focus of its enforcement of fraud cases on Exchange Act Section 20(b) ("Liability of controlling persons and persons who aid and abet violations"), a section of the statute that commonly has not been

On May 20, 2014, the U.S. State and Treasury Departments announced that an additional 12 Russian individuals were sanctioned pursuant to the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act ("Magnitsky Act"). The Magnitsky Act authorizes the State and Treasury Departments to designate not only individuals who were involved in the detention and death of Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, but also those responsible for gross human rights abuses against individuals seeking to (i) expose illegal activity carried out by Russian government officials; or (ii) obtain, exercise, defend or promote

The SEC announced charges against four former officials at the clearing firm, Penson Financial Services ("Penson"), for their roles in Regulation SHO ("Reg. SHO") violations. According to the SEC Orders, when Penson loaned securities held in customer margin accounts to third parties and the margin customers sold those securities, it waited until the settlement date (T+3) to recall the stock loans. Rule 204 under Reg. SHO ("Close-Out Requirement") required Penson to purchase or borrow sufficient shares to close out those failures to deliver no later than at the beginning of regular market hours

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency ("OCC") issued a proposed rule that would raise the semiannual assessment on national banks and federal savings associations ("FSAs") with more than $40 billion in assets. The proposal would increase the marginal assessment rates on asset amounts in excess of $40 billion by 14.5 percent, as well as amend 12 CFR 8 to clarify that the OCC may increase the marginal assessment rates for reasons other than inflationary indexing. The total increase in the assessment amount for an individual national bank or FSA would depend on its total assets, with