The United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy and Spain have signed an agreement establishing a pilot multilateral information exchange facility based on the U.S. FATCA Model 1 Agreement that each country has entered, or intends to enter, into with the United States. In a letter to EU Commissioner Algirdas Semeta, the five EU members called the U.S. FATCA Intergovernmental Agreements a "step change in tax transparency" and said that the pilot project will provide "a template as to the wider multilateral agreement we hope to see in due course." The five countries invited other EU countries to join

The MFA submitted a letter to the CFTC requesting relief from the CFTC's final rules on "Business Conduct Standards for Swap Dealers and Major Swap Participants with Counterparties" (External Business Conduct Rules) prior to the compliance date in order to allow intermediated trading to continue in its current form and to prevent disruptions to market liquidity. Specifically, MFA requested relief for all intermediated trading relationships related to any class of products where the swap dealer is acting in its capacity as a prime broker or intermediary and where both the prime broker and

The SEC announced that Mary Jo White was sworn in this morning as the 31st Chair of the Commission. View Press Release in full here (links externally to SEC website). See also: White's Biography; Senate Confirms Mary Jo White as SEC Chair.For a compilation of recent news items relating to personnel changes, primarily at the regulators, link to Current Topics - Personnel.

The CFTC had meetings with ICE as well as with Raj Mahajan, CEO of Allston Trading. See: Meeting with ICE; Meeting with Raj Mahajan.

CFTC Commissioner Scott O'Malia released a statement in which he criticized the process which granted relief to end users from CFTC Rules Part 43, 45 and 46. He described the process by which the letters were issued as "arbitrary and ad-hoc" and the various terms of the letters as "confusing." Commissioner O'Malia went on to say that unanswered concerns regarding data reporting requirements, coupled with the Commission's refusal to allow extensions for market participants to bring the IT infrastructure up to date, has led to the end user "suffering" the most. O'Malia also stated that the