The Financial Services Committee held a hearing to examine whether the Dodd-Frank Act authorizes the break up of financial institutions. The Committee stated that the Federal Reserve has not developed any metrics for determining whether a financial institution poses a "grave threat to the financial stability of the United States." Congressman Patrick McHenry, Chair for the Oversight and Investigation Subcommittee on Financial Services, stated that the indecisiveness on these issues is "a very frightening thing." See: Who Is Too Big to Fail?: Hearing Examines if Dodd-Frank Authorizes the Break

On April 16, 2013, Bloomberg L.P. filed a lawsuit against the CFTC in the federal district court for the District of Columbia asking the court to set aside CFTC Rule 39. 13(g)(2)(ii) [Risk Management], which indirectly mandates higher margin requirements for financial swaps than it does for economically equivalent futures and non-financial swaps. Bloomberg argues that the rule's disparate treatment of futures and commodity-based swaps, on the one hand, and financial swaps, on the other, improperly creates an opportunity for arbitrage between financial swaps and interchangeable "swap futures"

FINRA released its podcast for April 17, 2013, focusing on market regulation priorities. See the outline below. Algorithmic and High-Frequency Trading Examiners are focused on how firms are supervising the development of algorithms and trading systems. FINRA will continue to assess whether firms have adequate testing and controls for their systems consistent with the market access rule and other supervisory obligations. FINRA will also focus on whether firms have a firm-wide disconnect, or "kill switches," as well as procedures for responding to widespread systems malfunctions. FINRA is

FINRA is reminding firms of the coming reduction in reporting periods for the timely reporting of transactions in agency pass-through mortgage-backed securities traded TBA for good delivery (MBS TBA transactions GD) and products not traded for good delivery (MBS TBA transactions NGD). Current Reporting Requirement until May 17, 2013, 11:59:59 p.m. ET (from time of execution) Reporting Requirement upon Expiration of the Pilot Program (from time of execution) MBS TBA transactions GD 45 minutes 15 minutes MBS TBA transactions NGD 120 minutes 60 minutes View Notice in full here (links externally

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation ("FDIC") released a statement by James R. Wigand, Director, Office of Complex Financial Institutions, and Richard J. Osterman, Jr., Acting General Counsel, on "Who Is Too Big to Fail?" examining the application of Title I of the Dodd-Frank Act. This is essentially a statement of the purposes in requring large banks to develop "living wills" and the progress that the largest financial institutions have made in developing these wills. Mr. Alvarez's speech discussed the measures being taking to reduce the probability of failure by a large bank