FINRA released a notice regarding the SEC-approved amendments to FINRA Rules 6271 ("Registration as an ADF Market Maker or ADF ECN") and 6272 ("Character of Quotations"), which govern registration in and participation on the Alternative Display Facility ("ADF"). The amendments add new requirements to the application that prospective ADF market participants must submit to FINRA prior to submitting quotes on and reporting trades to the ADF. As part of the application process, the amendments require prospective ADF market participants to submit a deposit into escrow. The amendments also set forth

The Federal Reserve Board ("FRB"), FDIC, Officer of the Comptroller of the Currency ("OCC") and the SEC (the "Agencies"), and the CFTC in a separate rule release, published in the Federal Register the adoption of final rules implementing Section 619 of the Dodd-Frank Act, commonly known as the "Volcker Rule." Though the CFTC adopted a final rule that is not a joint rule with the other agencies, the other agencies and the CFTC stated that they worked closely together to develop the same rule text and supplementary information. The Agencies adopted a rule that would implement Section 13 of the

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network ("FinCEN") published two administrative rulings, providing additional information on whether a person's conduct related to convertible virtual currency brings them within the Bank Secrecy Act's ("BSA") definition of a money transmitter. The first ruling concludes the following: to the extent a user creates or "mines" a convertible virtual currency solely for a user's own purposes, the user is not a money transmitter under the BSA. The second states: a company purchasing and selling convertible virtual currency as an investment exclusively for the

The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System ("FRB"), the CFTC, the FDIC, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the SEC (the "Agencies") published in the Federal Register an interim final rule permitting banking entities to retain interests in certain collateralized debt obligations ("CDOs") backed primarily by trust preferred securities ("TruPS"), notwithstanding the investment prohibitions of Dodd-Frank Section 619 (the "Volcker Rule"), provided that the TruPS securities in the CDO in question consist predominantly of TruPS issued by a bank with less than $15 billion in

The CFTC Division of Market Oversight announced it will host a public roundtable on February 12, 2014 to discuss the application of the CEA's trade execution requirement to "package transactions." The roundtable will discuss the following items with respect to transactions involving at least one swap subject to the trade execution requirement: the definition of package transactions; whether such transactions pose challenges in clearing or execution that are distinct from those applicable to clearing or execution of stand-alone swaps subject to the trade execution requirements; and potential