The SEC announced that, on March 12, 2013, a federal court in New York entered final judgment against Frederick J. O'Meally, the sole remaining defendant in a fraud action filed by the Commission on August 28, 2006. The SEC alleged that he used deceptive practices to evade blocks by mutual fund companies on his market timing trading. Click here to learn more (links externally to SEC website).

CFTC Commissioner Chilton delivered remarks addressing the significance of the collapse of MF Global and Peregrine on the futures industry and the importance of increased customer protections with regard to FCMs. He noted that several improvements have already been made, while others are in the process of being implemented. The most important of these prospective improvements is the establishment of an insurance fund for futures customers, which would be similar to those already in place for securities and banking customers. View speech in full here (links externally to CFTC website).

FINRA Chairman and CEO Richard Ketchum delivered a speech in which he discussed how regulators and consumer advocates can work together to ensure that consumers are making sound financial decisions. Mr. Ketchum also discussed concerns as to a number of types of financial products, including structured products, closed-end funds and privately placed securities sold by issuers, about which there is limited available information. Mr. Ketchum expressed his support for a uniform fiduciary standard for broker-dealers and investment advisers, and suggested that broker-dealer regulation and investment

CFTC Chairman Gary Gensler testified before the U.S. House Committee on Agriculture on the status of Dodd-Frank Title VII implementation. Chairman Gensler described the CFTC's continuing efforts in the swaps rule-making area as follows: Transparency: The CFTC is working to finish the pre-trade transparency rules for swap execution facilities ("SEFs"), as well as the block rule for swaps; Clearing: Chairman Gensler expects that the CFTC will soon complete a rule to exempt swaps between certain affiliated entities within a corporate group from the clearing requirements, and will be considering

Carl W. Hoecker introduced himself as the newly appointed Inspector General of the SEC in a written testimony before the Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government, Committee on Appropriations, and U.S. House of Representatives. Topics discussed in his testimony included: the role of the OIG; SEC OIG Audits, including audits of rulemaking cost-benefit analyses; SEC OIG Investigations. View testimony in full here (links externally to SEC website).