SEC Commissioner Michael Piwowar spoke at the First Annual Conference on the Regulation of Financial Markets regarding the important role that economic analysis and academic research plays in securities regulation. Commissioner Piwowar stated that, during his tenure at the SEC, he has seen economists become more involved with respect to rulemakings, enforcement and inspections of regulated entities. He explained that the SEC Division of Economic and Risk Analysis ("DERA") provides the foundation of economic analysis, at the front end of tackling regulatory problems, that serves as an essential

On May 16, 2014, the North American Tax Committee of ISDA ("ISDA") sent additional comments to the U.S. Treasury Department ("Treasury") and the IRS addressing potential issues under FATCA relating to collateral posted to secure swap transactions. ISDA expressed concern that a transitional rule contained in Temporary Regulations issued in February 2014 to exempt payments on collateral from FATCA until 2017 was flawed. The transitional rule provides that withholdable payments under FATCA do not include a "payment made prior to January 1, 2017, by a secured party with respect to collateral

The International Swaps and Derivatives Association, Inc. ("ISDA") and FIA Europe jointly announced the publication of the ISDA/FIA Europe Cleared Derivatives Execution Agreement (the "Agreement") for principal-to-principal client clearing. According to the press release, the Agreement is designed to be used as a template for market participants when negotiating execution agreements under English law for swaps that are intended to be cleared by central counterparties located outside of the United States. See: Joint Agreement.

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