The House Committee on Agriculture held a hearing on the CFTC reauthorization. The hearing was intended to give the House Ag Committee an opportunity to review the CFTC's operations, examine the pressing issues facing the futures and swaps markets, evaluate how regulations are impacting end users and the agricultural community, and determine how best to protect customer funds while restoring confidence in our markets. In an opening statement, Chairman Lucas provided a critical assessment of the regulatory and enforcement approach the CFTC has taken of late, stating, "It would be one thing if

FINRA announced that it fined LPL Financial LLC ("LPL") $7.5 million for 35 separate, significant email system failures, which prevented LPL from accessing hundreds of millions of emails and reviewing tens of millions of other emails. The following failures were highlighted by FINRA: Over a four-year period, LPL failed to supervise 28 million "doing business as" ("DBA") emails sent and received by thousands of representatives who were operating as independent contractors. LPL failed to maintain access to hundreds of millions of emails during a transition to a less expensive email archive, and

The MFA, the Futures Industry Association, the Investment Company Institute, and SIFMA's Asset Management Group submitted a joint letter to the CFTC's Division of Clearing and Risk requesting a 90-day extension of Rule 1.73(a)(2)(v)(B) from June 1, 2013, to September 1, 2013. Rule 1.73(a)(2)(v)(B) requires FCMs and account managers to enter into an agreement for bunched orders that requires the account manager to screen the bunched order for compliance with applicable risk limits. In the letter, the trade associations explained that, while the industry is actively working on complying with the

FINRA Chairman and CEO Richard G. Ketchum delivered a speech regarding the crisis of confidence in the markets at the FINRA Annual Conference and various steps that the regulators were taking, and that firms should take, to restore confidence. Chairman Ketchum began by discussing changes made to FINRA's regulatory program. He proclaimed that the 2013 Risk Control Assessment survey would become a central part of FINRA's risk-based examination program. Because of this, he encouraged firms to complete the survey. He said that the FINRA would be approving its membership application program

Chicago Federal Reserve Bank Senior Policy Advisor, John W. McPartland, authored a paper in which he discussed altering the financial markets in order to slow trading and allow market participants more chances to compete with some High-Frequency Trading ("HFT") strategies. According to the paper, although HFT may in general be a good thing, HFT strategies run counter to good public policy and inflate transaction costs with limited benefits for liquidity and pricing. McPartland argues that his proposals would help make security and derivatives markets fairer to mutual funds and individual