The Senate Agricultural Committee voted to send the three nominees to be CFTC Commissioners to the full Senate for approval. Ranking Member Cochran (R-MS) issued a statement endorsing the nominees generally, but worrying as to the Commissioners' collective lack of experience in the agricultural markets and with respect to futures generally. See: Senate Agricultural Committee Business Hearing; Ranking Member Cochran Statement. Related news: Senate Agriculture Committee to Vote on CFTC Nominations (with Delta Strategy Group Comment) (April 4, 2014); Senate Agriculture Committee Holds Hearing on

In a statement released regarding the CFTC's fiscal year 2013 report to Congress, Commissioner O'Malia suggested that the CFTC "missed a great opportunity" relating to customer protection, and urged the Commission – as a part of its pending strategic plan – to develop a more "comprehensive and technologically savvy" customer protection program. Citing how, in fiscal year 2013, the CFTC spent only about $1 million on the whistleblower program and customer education initiatives, Commissioner O'Malia stated that the CFTC's efforts to protect the American public from fraud and other market abuses

The House Committee on Agriculture introduced bipartisan legislation titled the "Customer Protection and End User Relief Act" ( H.R. 4413) to reauthorize and improve the operations of the CFTC and to address concerns relating to market certainty and customer protection. If passed, the Act would, among other things, amend the CEA to allow many end users who are legitimate "commercial market participants" to avoid being treated as financial entities. It would provide relief for end users who use contracts that result in the actual physical delivery of a commodity that has an embedded option to

The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System ("FRB"), the FDIC and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency ("OCC") adopted a final rule to strengthen the leverage ratio standards for U.S. top-tier bank holding companies with more than $700 billion in consolidated total assets, or more than $10 trillion in assets under custody ("covered BHCs"), and their insured depository institution ("IDI") subsidiaries. Covered BHCs must maintain a leverage buffer greater than two percentage points above the minimum supplementary leverage ratio requirement of three percent, for a total of more

The North American Securities Administrators Association ("NASAA") held its annual Public Policy Conference in Washington D.C., featuring speakers such as SEC Commissioners Kara Stein and Luis Aguilar, as well as Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV). The two panels discussed (i) digital investments, focusing on Bitcoin and other new or emerging types, and (ii) the decrease of stock ownership among Americans and how to encourage main street investors to return to the capital markets. Commissioner Stein discussed the importance of revisiting the partnership between the SEC and NASAA, especially with the