The Enforcement Advisor, authored by Brad Bondi, Keith Gerver, and Karen Woody, titled "SEC Announces Third Whistleblower Award," di cusses the SEC announcement of its third-and largest-award under the whistleblower bounty program created as part of the Dodd-Frank. The $14 million award comes roughly four months after the SEC announced its second award, which went to three claimants who had exposed a "sham hedge fund," and a little over a year after its first award, which went to a claimant who stopped a multi-million dollar fraud. As with the claimants for the first two awards, Dodd-Frank

The SEC announced the appointment of Daniel Murdock as a deputy chief accountant in the agency's Office of the Chief Accountant. The group advises the SEC on accounting and auditing matters and works closely with private sector accounting bodies such as the Financial Accounting Standards Board. Mr. Murdock is filling the vacancy created when Paul Beswick was promoted to chief accountant. See: SEC Press Release.

SIFMA submitted comments to the SEC in response to the recommendations made by the "Investor as Purchaser Subcommittee" as to how the SEC should implement a fiduciary standard applicable to broker-dealers that provide investment advice to retail investors. In the comment letter, SIFMA stated that many of the recommendations in the draft are in accord with SIFMA's views on how to implement Dodd-Frank Section 913 ("Study and Rulemaking Regarding Obligations of Brokers, Dealers, and Investment Advisers") while preserving the broker-dealer business model. SIFMA also noted a few places where the

The National Futures Association ("NFA") released a Notice to members indicating that all futures commission merchants ("FCMs") and forex dealer members ("FDMs") are required to do an initial one-time filing of management personnel information by November 30, 2013, pursuant to the recent amendments to NFA Compliance Rule 2-38("Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Plan"). Following Hurricane Sandy, Compliance Rule 2-38 was amended to expand its business continuity and disaster recovery reporting requirements. Each FCM and FDM must file contact information for all key management personnel

ISDA announced the launch of the ISDA 2013 Account Control Agreement ("ISDA ACA"). The ISDA ACA is intended to streamline tri-party custodial negotiations by facilitating the negotiation process of contractual arrangements that provide for segregation of Independent Amounts with a third-party custodian. Similar to the ISDA Master Agreement, the ISDA ACA agreement provides a standardized agreement with an accompanying annex containing suggested optional provisions that can be appropriately amended. See: ISDA Press Release.