CFTC Commissioner Bart Chilton delivered a speech at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis discussing the Volcker Rule and saying there was a need to "keep it simple stupid" ("KISS"). Commissioner Chilton criticized the degree of wealth and income inequality in America, describing it as "mind-blowing," "not good news at all," and "whacked." He indicated concern over the revival of the U.S. economy, noting that, while the unemployment rate had gone down that reduction may have been "only because more people stopped looking for work and were no longer counted as unemployed. WAH, WAH, WAH." He

SEC Commissioner Luis A. Aguilar delivered a speech at the North American Securities Administrators Association, Annual NASAA/SEC Conference criticizing what he said were "efforts to weaken investor protections". In addition to praising the efforts of the states in the securities enforcement area and echoing the concerns of NASAA that the JOBS Act may materially increase fraud against investors, Commissioner Aguilar argued for (i) disqualifying felons and other bad actors from Rule 506 offerings; (ii) strengthening private remedies for victims of fraud by allowing private lawsuits against

Commenting on a FINRA rule proposal, SIFMA recommends that FINRA Rule 8313, which governs the release of disciplinary and other information by FINRA to the public, be amended to provide for the public disclosure of a failure by a member or associated persons of a member to pay an arbitration award to an industry claimant. Currently, FINRA Rule 9554 allows for the suspension or cancellation of membership or a suspension from associating with any member when a member or associated person fails to comply with an arbitration award or settlement agreement related to arbitration or mediation. The

SIFMA filed an amicus brief, in a case involving the underwriting in 1999 of the eToys IPO, which supports the position that the lead underwriter in an initial public offering does not owe a fiduciary duty to the issuer of securities to disclose conflicts of interest in connection with the pricing of the securities. The case against the underwriter was brought by a committee of eToy's creditors. SIFMA's amicus brief provides a review of considerations as to why such a fiduciary standard should not be imposed on underwriters where it is not set forth in the underwriting contract itself. View

Various measures to fix the unexpected consequences of derivatives provisions in the Dodd-Frank Act, and to require the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") to conduct cost-benefit analyses of regulations, were discussed during a hearing today of the Financial Services Subcommittee on Capital Markets and Government Sponsored Enterprises. The following is a summary of the legislation which the subcommittee discussed: H.R. 634, the Business Risk Mitigation and Price Stabilization Act of 2013, introduced by Reps. Michael Grimm (R-NY), Gary Peters (D-MI), Austin Scott (R-GA) and Mike