The SEC charged Umesh Tandon, the CEO of a Chicago-based investment advisory firm called Simran Capital Management, with lying to potential clients and current clients, including the California Public Employers' Retirement System ("CalPERS") about the firm's assets under management ("AUM"). CalPERS and other institutional investors use AUM as a metric to screen prospective investment advisers soliciting their business. The firm undermined CalPERS' screening process by fraudulently reporting a grossly inflated AUM to obtain its business, and lured in other investors under false pretenses on

The International Organization of Securities Commissions ("IOSCO") published a consultation report which analyses global trends in the retail structured product market and proposes a regulatory tool kit ("Toolkit") for IOSCO members. Lofchie Comment: The report itself is interesting for its description of the retail structured products market around the world. There is very little of the report about the United States market. Starting at around page 37 is the description of the so-called regulatory Toolkit. Some proposed tools however, may have negative consequences for the market, such as a

Members of the Financial Services Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee stated during a hearing that, by ignoring the deadline to implement a key provision of a bipartisan law approved a year ago, the SEC is costing America desperately needed jobs in a struggling economy. The SEC failed to meet the JOBS Act's deadlines to write required rules for other provisions that will help small businesses raise capital and hire workers. See: Press Release.For a compilation of related news items, see Current Topics - JOBS Act.See clip from YouTube.

In February 2012, pursuant to an SEC order, FINRA established an accounting support fee ("GASB Accounting Support Fee") to adequately fund the annual budget of the Governmental Accounting Standards Board ("GASB"). The GASB Accounting Support Fee is collected on a quarterly basis from member firms that report trades to the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board ("MSRB"). Each member firm's assessment is based on the member firm's portion of the total par value of municipal securities transactions reported by all FINRA member firms to the MSRB during the previous quarter. FINRA will assess and

The CFTC filed a complaint against a Certified Public Accounting Firm, and its sole owner and auditor, which served as an independent auditor and conducted required year-end audits for a brokerage house registered with the CFTC as a Futures Commission Merchant ("FCM") under Section 6c of the Commodity Exchange Act ("CEA") to enjoin their unlawful acts and practices and to compel their compliance with CEA and CFTC Regulations. Moreover, the CFTC sought civil monetary penalties, pre- and post-judgment interest and other equitable relief. In its complaint, the CFTC alleged that: Defendants were