Federal financial regulatory agencies issued a final rule that establishes new appraisal requirements for "higher-priced mortgage loans." This rule implements the Truth in Lending Act amendments under the Dodd-Frank Act. The rule exempts several types of loans, such as qualified mortgages, temporary bridge loans and construction loans, loans for new manufactured homes, and loans for mobile homes, trailers and boats that are dwellings. The rule also has exemptions from the second appraisal requirement to facilitate loans in rural areas and other transactions. The rule is being issued by the

The CFTC is extending the time period for which it is reviewing a request from the Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. ("CME") for approval of proposed CME Rule 1001 submitted pursuant to CFTC Rule Section 40.5. Essentially, the proposed CME Rule would require that swaps cleared on the CME be reported to the Swap Data Repository ("SDR") maintained by the CME. As we had previously reported, the CFTC would have originally required that the parties to a swap be able to select the SDR to which their data would be reported. This CFTC position had been challenged in court by the CME, and, in order to

The SEC approved amendments to the Customer and Industry Codes of Arbitration Procedures (Codes) which direct arbitrators, in most instances, to issue orders (arbitrator orders), instead of issuing subpoenas, when industry parties seek the appearance of witnesses or the production of documents from non-party firms or their employees or associated persons. The amendments add procedures for non-parties to object to subpoenas and for parties and non-parties to object to arbitrator orders of production. The amendments also standardize procedures under the Codes relating to service of motions for

HSBC joined the agreement announced by the Federal Reserve Board and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency ("OCC") to pay $249 million in cash payments to help mortgage borrowers. The sums paid by HSBC include $96 million in direct payments to eligible borrowers and $153 million in other assistance, such as loan modifications and forgiveness of deficiency judgments. Other lenders had previously entered into similar agreements with the bank regulators. View Press Release in full here (links externally to Federal Reserve website).

The CFTC published a notice of proposed rulemaking (the “Customer Protection Proposal”) to adopt new regulations and amend existing regulations to require enhanced customer protections, risk management programs, internal monitoring and controls, capital and liquidity standards, customer disclosures, and auditing and examination programs for futures commission merchants (“FCMs”). In order to provide interested parties with an additional opportunity to comment on the Customer Protection Proposal, the Commission is extending the comment period for the Customer Protection Proposal until February