The SEC charged UBS Securities with violating securities laws by failing to disclose fees that it had received in connection with the marketing of a CDO - fees that the SEC said rightfully belonged to investors. See: Litigation Press Release.

SIFMA has commented on the proposed rule filed with the SEC by NYSE Arca regarding the extension of the Penny Trading Program ("Pilot") to December 31, 2013. SIFMA commented in support of the proposed change, stating that it would prevent possible investor confusion if the Pilot were to expire before the permanent program was approved. Additionally, SIFMA recommends consistent filings by Arca and other options exchanges to make the Pilot permanent. See: SIFMA Comment Letter.

The SEC has charged Bank of America and two subsidiaries with defrauding investors in a residential mortgage-backed security ("RMBS") offering by failing to disclose risks and misrepresenting facts about the underlying mortgages. See: SEC Press Release; SEC Complaint against Bank of America; DOJ Press Release.

CFTC Commissioner Bart Chilton delivered a speech urging the Fed to reverse its policy of allowing banks to own physical commodities. Chilton stated that he wrote to Chairman Ben Bernanke urging him to rewrite the Volcker Rule in a "precise and surefooted fashion." Chilton explained he believes that banks owning physical commodities could render the Volcker Rule useless by obscuring "business risk." Commissioner Chilton suggested that banks should get back to banking. Lofchie Comment:One of the problems that Dodd-Frank creates is too many regulators with confused and overlapping jurisdictions

The CFTC's Division of Market Oversight has issued an amendment to CFTC No-Action Letter No. 13-48, which grants relief from the aggregation prohibition in 43.6(h)(6) ("Block Trades of Large Notional Off-Facility Swaps") of the CFTC Rules for certain CTAs and IAs with respect to large notional off-facility swaps. The relief has an October 1 end date for swaps that are traded on a CFTC-regulated market and an indefinite extension for swaps not traded on a market. The letter emphasizes that the relief is only available where the aggregated swaps are executed in a single transaction. See: Amended