The SEC Division of Trading and Markets provided no-action relief to the Financial Information Forum's Regulation E Working Group, which requested assurance that the staff will not recommend enforcement action to the SEC under Regulation E if a broker-dealer provides to consumers disclosures of fees, currency exchange rates and taxes in the same way that an "insured institution" is permitted to do under Sections 1005.32(a) and 1005.32(c) of Regulation E. The amendments to Regulation E, which implements the Electronic Fund Transfer Act, are designed to provide new protections to consumers who

The SEC has charged a digital financial media company and three executives for their roles in an accounting fraud that artificially inflated company revenues and misstated operating income to investors. See: SEC Complaint v. TheStreet; SEC complaint v. Ashman; SEC complaint v. Alwine and Barnett. See also: SEC Press Release.

On August 28, 2012, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board ("PCAOB") filed with the SEC proposed rules to adopt PCAOB Auditing Standard No. 16, "Communications with Audit Committees," and related and transitional amendments to PCAOB standards. The standard requires certain communications with the audit committee to occur before the issuance of the audit report. This order approves Auditing Standard 16. Click here to view order in full (links externally to SEC website).

The MSRB is requesting broad industry and public input on its regulation of the municipal securities market as it engages in a comprehensive review to ensure that its rules reflect current market practices. Comments should be submitted no later than February 19, 2013. Lofchie Comment: As we have previously noted, new SEC Chairman Walter has a particular interest in the regulation of the municipal securities markets. Accordingly, we would expect that there will be significant developments in this area at both the MSRB and the SEC; in addition, the new Chairman will likely advocate for

The MFA submitted the attached comment letter to ESMA in response to ESMA's consultation paper on remuneration guidelines under MiFID. (As the letter notes, many hedge fund managers will become subject to these remuneration principles.) Additionally, the MFA encouraged ESMA to make clear that "the principle of proportionality applied to all of the guidelines and that proportionality included the right for Member State regulators to completely neutralize individual guidelines with respect to certain types of MiFID firms." The MFA also encouraged ESMA to narrow the scope of relevant persons and