On December 31, the IRS published Temporary and Proposed Regulations regarding the reporting by U.S. taxpayers of interests in Passive Foreign Investment Companies ("PFICs"). U.S. investors in PFICs are subject to special tax rules designed to eliminate the deferral of tax liability on passive investments that might otherwise be available from such investments made through foreign investment companies. In 2010, Congress adopted Section 1298(f) of the Internal Revenue Code, which required most U.S. investors to file an annual report on Form 8621 with their U.S. income tax return describing

FINRA has filed with the SEC an amendment to FINRA Rule 2251 ("Forwarding of Proxy and Other Issuer-Related Materials") relating to rates of reimbursement for expenses incurred in forwarding proxy and other issuer-related material. The amendment would establish a five-year fee for the development of an enhanced brokers' internet platform, and to make miscellaneous revisions, in order to conform to the language found in Rules 451 and 465. FINRA requested that the proposed rule amendment not become operative for 30 days after the date of filing. See: Text of Proposed Rule Change; Press Release.

The CFTC's Division of Swap Dealer and Intermediary Oversight issued two time-limited no-action letters regarding the annual reporting requirements for chief compliance officers ("CCOs") pursuant to CFTC Rule 3.3 ("Chief Compliance Officer"). The first letter provided no-action relief from CFTC Rule 3.3 to permit all futures commission merchants ("FCMs"), swap dealers, and major swap participants ("MSPs") with Annual Reports due in calendar year 2014 to submit such reports 90 days after the FCM's fiscal year-end without being required to submit them at the same time as the Form 1-FR-FCM or

The American Bankers Association and four individual banks brought a lawsuit seeking injunctive relief against the banking regulators, and asserting that the provision of the Volcker Rule's final regulations that requires banking entities to divest themselves of a "commonly held debt instrument known as a 'TruPS-backed CDO'" was in violation of the law in that the instruments constitute debt, rather than equity interests, and are therefore outside the scope of the Volcker Rule. Beyond the substantive legal question, the lawsuit also challenges the procedure by which this particular provision

Last Saturday, the New York Times ran a front-page article that took the view that it was improper of Craig Pirrong, an academic at the University of Houston who writes on commodities-related issues, to also act as a consultant to financial market participants. Lofchie Comment: Professor Pirrong has repeatedly argued that regulators should attempt to test for the costs and benefits of their regulations empirically. In this regard, his academic research led him to the conclusion that the CFTC's proposed position limits rule does not have a sound theoretical basis. The basis for his research is