SIFMA and 14 other trade organizations, including the ABA, FSR, MBA, and ICI, submitted a joint comment letter to the U.S. House. The letter urged support for an amendment to H.R. 2610 (the "Transportation and HUD Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2014") to prohibit the FHA from insuring residential mortgages seized through eminent domain. The organizations stated that an amendment is necessary because numerous communities across the country are now considering using a municipality's eminent domain power to acquire performing but underwater mortgage loans held in private-label mortgage-backed

The SEC has released its annual staff report relating to the use of data collected from Form PF. Form PF was implemented in 2011 as a provision of Section 404 ("Collection of Systemic Risk Data; Reports; Examinations; Disclosures") of Dodd-Frank, requiring certain registered investment advisers that advise private funds to report information to the Commission, primarily for the FSOC to assess systemic risk. At this point, the SEC has only recently received a complete set of initial filings and therefore has only started assessing the quality of the data collected. The report notes the

The SEC staff confirmed that the Exchange Act Section 28(e) ("Exchange, Broker, and Dealer Commissions; Brokerage and Research Services") exemption for "soft dollar" payments is available with respect to agency transactions in fixed income securities. The letter does not break any new ground. It just confirms that Section 28(e) commissions generated by agency executions of debt may be used to purchase research. For a full discussion of Section 28(e) and soft dollars, see the Trading Chapter of Lofchie's Guide to Broker-Dealer Regulation or the Trading Chapter of the Hedge Fund Guide. See: SEC

The SEC has adopted amendments to the net capital, customer protection, books and records, and notification rules for broker-dealers promulgated under the Exchange Act. The amendments (commonly called the "Onig Amendments" in the industry, named after one of the SEC staffers who had been heavily involved in their initial development when they were first proposed in 2007) are designed to address areas of concern regarding financial responsibility requirements for broker-dealers, including updating the requirements and enhancing the SEC's ability to monitor business practices. The rule

The MSRB published the second in a series of concept releases relating to the planned development of a new central transparency platform ("CTP") as part of the MSRB's long-range plan for market transparency. The MSRB is seeking comments from all interested parties on the specific data elements the MSRB should consider disseminating publicly through the CTP with respect to both pre-trade and post-trade pricing information. In addition, the MSRB is seeking input on the appropriate methods, technologies and data protocols that could be used in collecting pre-trade information in a manner that is