In a statement before the CFTC Roundtable on Financial Market Benchmarks, CFTC Chairman Gary Gensler asserted the importance of moving to a more robust framework for financial market benchmarks, especially those for short-term variable interest rates. Chairman Gensler further stated that LIBOR has been "readily and pervasively rigged," and thus may no longer be grounded in real transactions. As to the future of LIBOR, he questioned whether the published rates had any meaning, given what he said was the very limited volume of unsecured interbank financing. Chairman Gensler also discussed the

The Federal Reserve Board ("FRB") requested comment on a proposed rule to amend Regulation HH to set out the conditions and requirements for a FRB to open and maintain accounts for and provide financial services to financial market utilities designated as systemically important by the Financial Stability Oversight Council. The proposed rule, which implements provisions of Section 806 of the Dodd-Frank Act, would also authorize a Reserve Bank to pay interest on the balances maintained by a designated financial market utility just as a Reserve Bank is able to pay interest to a bank. View

Germany's Finance Ministry announced on February 22 that Germany and the United States had initialed an Intergovernmental Agreement ("IGA") based on the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act ("FATCA") to encourage tax compliance. The agreement is based on the reciprocal Model 1 agreement published by the U.S. Treasury last July. According to the German Finance Ministry, the IGA will include the following: Germany will commit to make the information of U.S. customers with accounts at German banks available to U.S. authorities. In return, the United States will need to disclose information to

Attached is an analysis by Robert Zwirb of the written arguments of the parties and the CFTC (as intervenor) in the Brian Hunter v. FERC manipulation case. Hunter is a former Amaranth Advisors trader. The question in this case is whether FERC can prosecute a trader of natural gas futures contracts under FERC's anti-manipulation rule, in particular, whether it has jurisdiction to bring that case. The CFTC intervened in the case and argued that its own exclusive jurisdiction over futures transactions precludes FERC from asserting jurisdiction over the same transactions. A prior analysis by Zwirb

SEC Director of the Office of International Affairs Ethiopis Tafara elaborates on his views regarding "Growth, Stability and Sustainability" in the United States' post-recession environment. Tafara asserts that problems in the capital markets can be alleviated by restoring investor confidence in the integrity of the system. This, in Tafara's opinion, would be accomplished through regulators focusing more on conflicts of interest and informational asymmetry problems rather than by adopting banking supervisory approaches, which he argues focuses on the limting of risk. Mr. Tafara argues that the