SIFMA provided comments to FINRA on a proposed change toFINRA Rule 2267 (Investor Education and Protection) that would require FINRA member firms to "include a prominent description of and link to FINRA BrokerCheck, as prescribed by FINRA," on firm "websites, social media pages and any comparable Internet presence". The proposed amendment would require the same descriptions and links to be included on websites, social media pages and any comparable Internet presence "relating to a member's investment banking or securities business maintained by or on behalf of any person associated with a

The CFTC and IOSCO will hold a public roundtable on Tuesday, February 26, 2013, to discuss the IOSCO Consultation Report, " Financial Benchmarks," which was published in January 2013. Along with the written comments and the roundtable discussion held in London on February 20, this rountable is intended to provide input for the IOSCO Final Report containing principles of best practices for benchmark methodologies and governance. Click hereto learn more (links externally to CFTC website). Related News Item: IOSCO Report on Financial Benchmarks; e.g., LIBOR (with Lofchie Comment).

FINRA staff discussed examples of registered representatives’ misconduct in settled or litigated cases, as featured in the October issue of FINRA's Quarterly Disciplinary Review. See below for descriptions of some cases. FINRA's National Adjudicatory Council ("NAC") suspended and fined a registered representative who failed to investigate a customer's trading instructions, which violated the FINRA ethical standards rule; FINRA suspended a registered representative who failed to disclose his association with two businesses to his firm and who acted improperly while administering a state

The CFTC filed an enforcement action charging the New York Mercantile Exchange, Inc. ("CME NYMEX"), and two former CME NYMEX employees, with violating the Commodity Exchange Act and CFTC Rules through the repeated disclosures of material nonpublic customer information to an unauthorized outside commodity broker. According to the complaint, the nonpublic customer information which was unlawfully disclosed included details of "recently executed trades, the identities of the parties to specific trades, the brokers involved in trades, the number of contracts traded, the prices paid, the structure

The Enforcement Division of FINRA brought three claims against Charles Schwab alleging that the firm's arbitration language in its form agreements was in violation of the FINRA rules. The language at issue concerned class actions. The Hearing Panel ruled for Schwab on two of the three claims, but for the Enforcement Division on the third. The Hearing Panel ordered Schwab to take a number of remedial measures and also fined the firm. Lofchie Comment: Is it appropriate to fine a firm in a case such as this? A straightforward reading of the case suggests that Schwab attempted to ensure that its