The SEC issued a notice giving itself until February 27, 2014 to review proposed amendments to the FINRA rules governing the reporting of (i) over-the-counter ("OTC") transactions in equity securities to the FINRA Facilities, and (ii) orders in national market system ("NMS") stocks and OTC Equity Securities to the Order Audit Trail System ("OATS"). See: SEC Notice. See generally: FINRA Rule Calendar (accessible to Cabinet subscribers only). Related news: FINRA Proposes Rule Relating to OTC Equity Trade Reporting and OATS Reporting (November 12, 2013).

The SEC Office of Municipal Securities issued interpretive guidance regarding the implementation of new final SEC rules requiring municipal advisors to register with the SEC. In the form of an FAQ, the guidance covered the following topics: the advice standard, including the general information exclusion and the treatment of business promotional materials used by potential underwriters; the request for proposals / request for qualifications exemption; the exemption for registered independent municipal advisors; the exclusion for registered investment advisers; the underwriter exclusion

The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System ("FRB") requested comment on proposed revisions to the Part 234 or Regulation HH ("Designated Financial Market Utilities") risk-management standards for certain financial market utilities that have been designated as systemically important by the Financial Stability Oversight Council ("FSOC"), including those for which the FRB is the supervisory agency pursuant to Dodd-Frank Title VIII. The FRB also requested comment on related revisions to Part I of the Federal Reserve Policy on Payment System Risk, which is applicable to financial market

The SEC approved a rule amendment to SIPC Rule 400 ("Satisfaction of Customer Claims for Standardized Options") relating to a trustee's handling of "standardized" options under SIPA ("Securities Investor Protection Act"). Currently, the SIPC rules require a SIPC trustee to liquidate the option positions held by an insolvent broker-dealer. The rule change would give the trustee the option to transfer the option positions to another broker-dealer. Additionally, the options that could be handled in such a manner would include not only U.S. exchange-traded and cleared options but also other

The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve ("FRB") and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation ("BFIC") made available public portions of resolution plans for 116 institutions. The 116 companies who were required to submit initial plans by December 31, 2013 were those that individually had less than $100 billion in qualifying nonbank assets. Additionally, the FDIC released the public sections of the recently filed resolution plans of 22 insured depository institutions. The majority of these insured depository institutions are subsidiaries of bank holding companies that concurrently