The U.S. Treasury Department has announced that it is engaged in negotiations or discussions with more than 50 countries with respect to establishing Intergovernmental Agreements ("IGAs") for the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act ("FATCA"). The Treasury previously published a Model IGA Agreement (Model 1), under which foreign financial institutions located in a foreign country would provide information with respect to accounts and investments owned directly or indirectly by U.S. persons to the local government for transmittal by such government to the United States. Treasury is also

Over the past year, the SEC received more than 3,000 whistleblower tips from all 50 states and from 49 countries, according to the agency's 2012 Annual Report on the Dodd-Frank Whistleblower Program. The report notes, among other things: The SEC made its first award under the new program to a whistleblower who helped the SEC stop an ongoing multi-million dollar fraud. The whistleblower received an award of 30 percent of the amount collected in the SEC's enforcement action, which is the maximum percentage payout allowed by law. The SEC received 3,001 tips, complaints and referrals from

PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP ("PWC") estimates that only 5 percent of large foreign banks have appointed a "responsible officer" to certify compliance with the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act ("FATCA") and otherwise manage the registration of foreign financial institutions as required by FATCA. In addition to promising that an entity is complying with FATCA, the responsible officer is in charge of registering foreign financial institutions ("FFIs"). Some of the largest banks have thousands of foreign entities that must be registered. For each one, the responsible officer will have to ensure

ICE Futures U.S. released an exchange notice regarding the announcement of a rulebook amendment and position limit changes. ICE filed the amendment to its regulatory rulebook pursuant to Section 5c(c)1 of the Commodity Exchange Act and Regulation 40.6 [Self-certification of rules]. The amendment provides language in Rule 6.20 "Position Limits, Conditional Limits and Position Accountability for Energy Contracts" to clarify the effective dates for position limits. View notice in full here (links externally to ICE website).

After a year-long investigation into MF Global's demise, the House Committee on Financial Services found that a series of decisions by Jon Corzine to turn MF Global into a full-service investment bank led to the company's bankruptcy and jeopardized customer funds. According to the investigative report, Corzine dramatically changed MF Global's business model without fully understanding the risks associated with such a radical transformation. Specifically, by expanding the company into new business lines without first returning its core commodities business to profitability, Corzine ensured that