The SEC announced that it will hold its annual Government-Business Forum on Small Business Capital Formation on November 21, 2013 at its Washington D.C. headquarters. The forum will include panel discussions on small business capital formation matters, including implementation of the JOBS Act, and participation policy recommendations. The registration deadline is November 15, 2013. See: Government-Business Forum Agenda; Forum Registration Form; SEC Press Release.

The FDIC and the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System ("FRB") released public sections of the recently filed annual resolution plans for eleven firms which describe each company's strategy for rapid and orderly resolution in the event of material financial distress or failure of the company. Dodd-Frank requires that bank holding companies with total consolidated assets of $50 billion or more and nonbank financial companies designated by the Financial Stability Oversight Council submit resolution plans to the FDIC and FRB. The public sections of the plans are available on the FDIC

The SEC sanctioned a Nebraska-based investment advisory firm and its owner for failing to seek the most beneficial terms reasonably available when investing in mutual fund shares for three funds that the company managed. The SEC found that Manarin Investment Counsel, Ltd. and Ronald R. Manarin violated "best execution" by consistently selecting higher cost mutual fund shares for the three fund clients, even though cheaper shares in the same mutual funds were available. The advisers' motivation was to earn higher 12b-1 fees through an affiliated broker-dealer. See: SEC Order; SEC Press Release.

The House Committee on Agriculture held a public hearing on the CFTC's proposed customer protections rule. According to the Delta Strategy Group summary (which is linked below), much of the discussion focused on the impact of two CFTC rule proposals: (1) the requirement that, at all times, an FCM must maintain residual interest of their own collateral in segregated accounts so that one futures customer's funds are not used to margin or secure the positions of another futures customer and (2) the change in time allowed for margin calls to be met by customers before the FCM must take a capital

SEC Chair Mary Jo White delivered a speech to the Security Traders Association's 80th Annual Market Structure Conference to review the status of equity market structure. Chair White focused on three particular "fundamentals" in her review of equity market structure, including: technology and the operational integrity of the markets; the identification and testing of "assumptions" about market structure; and the need for more empirical evidence and data to inform decisions about the markets. According to Chair White, there have been steps taken to address technology and operational integrity of