The CFTC announced that Judge James B. Zagel of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois issued a Consent Order of Permanent Injunction barring Australian firm Halifax Investment Services, Ltd. from soliciting orders to trade foreign currency ("forex") from U.S. residents who do not qualify as eligible contract participants ("ECPs"), and from offering to be the counterparty to U.S. residents' forex transactions without registering with the CFTC. According to the Order, Halifax maintained a website that permitted U.S. residents who were not ECPs to potentially apply to open

The SEC's Division of Corporate Finance (the "Division") issued a revised statement updating its policy on granting waivers of ineligible issuer status for issuers seeking to qualify as well-known seasoned issuers ("WKSIs") under Securities Act Rule 405. In the absence of a waiver, an "ineligible issuer," as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act, is not able to qualify as a WKSI. The Division's procedure in determining whether to grant a waiver is to consider how the misconduct that gave rise to the ineligible issuer status relates to the reliability of the issuer's current and future

On April 24, the IRS revised the FATCA FAQs on its website to add several new questions and answers dealing with qualified intermediaries, expanded affiliated groups and other interpretative questions. An entire new section titled "General Compliance" contains five new questions and answers. For example, one of the questions addressed is this: How do Certified Deemed-Compliant Foreign Financial Institutions ("FFIs"), Owner-Documented FFIs and Excepted FFIs certify to withholding agents that they are not subject to FATCA withholding, given that they are not required to register with the IRS and

The House Committee on Financial Services issued a notice announcing that, on Tuesday, April 29, 2014, there will be a full committee hearing titled "Oversight of the SEC's Agenda, Operations, and FY 2015 Budget Request." Se e: House Committee on Financial Services Announcement.

On April 15, the European Parliament adopted a Directive that will require large companies to include in their annual statements a non-financial disclosure concerning their approach to certain social matters, including anti-bribery issues. Assuming the Directive becomes law, which appears likely, companies will be required to describe their policies, risks and results with respect to anti-bribery, human rights, the environment and diversity on boards of directors, among other issues. The law does not require companies to make a "fully-fledged and detailed report," but rather necessitates the