The United States Senate Committee on Finance will meet on Wednesday, February 13, 2013, to consider Jacob Lew's nomination to serve as Treasury Secretary. See: Statement by Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), Ranking Member of the Senate Finance Committee.

The CFTC has released information as to the subject of, and participants in, a number of recent meetings between the CFTC staff and the outside world addressing, among other Dodd-Frank topics: (i) SDR reporting and registration, (ii) SEF registration, and (iii) DCM Core Principles. See below for details of each meeting. DATE MEETING WITH RULEMAKING 01/29/2013 More Info Morgan Stanley General 01/24/2013More Info Delta Strategy Group I. Registration 01/16/2013More Info CME XIII. SEF Registration XVI. Swap Data Repositories Registration General 01/15/2013More Info ICE XII. DCM Core Principles XVI

SIFMA has submitted comments to the NYSE Euronext on various Global Data Agreements ("Agreements") and related documents. SIFMA requested that the exchange not finalize the Agreements until after SIFMA has met with senior officers of the exchange and agreed on resolutions of various concerns. SIFMA also asserted that the Agreements raise substantial issues at the heart of "the exchange's relationship with member firms and the exchange's role as a self-regulatory organization (SRO) and exclusive processor of market data that must be distributed on fair and reasonable terms and in the public

Professor Craig Pirrong ( " Back to Futurization: The Consequences of Swap-O-Phobia," Streetwise Professor," (Feb. 2, 2013)) analyzes from an economics perspective the trend involving the conversion of swaps into futures, a.k.a., the "futurization of swaps," that was the subject of a recent CFTC public roundtable and two past commentaries of ours published in the Cabinet. ( See Zwirb comment of Jan. 31, 2013 and Lofchie comment of September 4, 2012.) Pirrong states that the main driver for this trend is the different regulatory treatment of the two products, a differential that favors futures

The SEC charged a Houston man with insider trading based on confidential details that he gleaned from his wife, a partner at a large law firm that was consulted on the deal. Lofchie Comment : I am a sucker for human interest stories. Was he the kind of husband who used the money to buy himself golf clubs or his wife expensive jewelry? Click here to view Litigation Release in full (links externally to SEC website).