The SEC Division of Investment Management issued no-action relief to ABA Retirement Funds ("ABA RF") and the American Bar Association Members/Northern Trust Collective Trust ("Program's Collective Trust") under Securities Act Section 5, permitting the issuance of units by the Program's Collective Trust without registration under the Securities Act. According to the incoming letter, the effect of this letter will be significant savings for ABA RF. See: SEC No-Action Relief to ABA RF.

The SEC charged oilfield services company Weatherford International with violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act ("FCPA"). See: SEC Complaint Against Weatherford; SEC Press Release. See also: SEC Summaries of FCPA cases; SEC and DOJ FCPA Resource Guide. Related news: SEC Charges Security Provider with FCPA Violations in China, Indonesia and Russia (October 22, 2013).

The Research Department of the International Organization of Securities Commissions ("IOSCO") launched a statistics web portal that will provide a global overview of specific securities markets. IOSCO stated that the new statistics web portal seeks to provide a centralized point for monitoring global trends, risks and vulnerabilities and will serve as a mechanism for comparison of how well markets are recovering in light of the crisis. The data will be updated on a monthly basis. Key statistics the portal will cover include: corporate debt; covered bonds; securitized products; Islamic finance

The Managed Funds Association ("MFA") Blog reported that a recent review of academic literature done by PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP ("PWC") indicates that the planned European financial transaction tax ("FTT") may fail to reduce market risks and could increase costs. The report consists of a literature review of studies that have examined the proposed FTT, and was commissioned by 27 trade groups including the Alternative Investment Management Association ("AIMA"), CME Group, ICE Group, Futures and Options Association ("FOA"), and the Association of Foreign Banks ("AFB"). The report further

The European Securities and Markets Authority ("ESMA") approved the CME European Trade Repository as a Trade Repository under the European Market Infrastructure Regulation ("EMIR"). CME Group's multi-asset European ("EU") trade repository, based in London, will accept submission of trades across all mandated derivative asset classes, namely interest rates, FX, credit, commodities and equities. Additionally, it will accept cleared and non-cleared, bilaterally-settled, over-the-counter and exchange-traded derivatives executed on venues anywhere in the world. See: CME Group Press Release.