FINRA Executive Vice President Thomas M. Selman delivered a speech on regulatory policy at the Investment Program Association Fall Conference in Washington, D.C., in which he discussed his support for the SRO model of regulation. The background of his talk, or maybe the foreground, was the assumption that insufficient governmental resources are available to regulate investment advisers adequately. Thus, a question has arisen as to whether investment advisers should be regulated only by the SEC (which would, as a practical matter, require greater funding of the SEC) or also by an SRO (very

The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the National Credit Union Administration and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (collectively, the "agencies") issued a supplemental statement on banking practices in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. In the statement, the agencies recognize the continuing impact of Hurricane Sandy on the customers and operations of many financial institutions, and encourage institutions to consider all reasonable and prudent steps to assist customers in communities affected by recent storms. Among the issues

The SEC charged BP p.l.c. ("BP") with misleading investors, while its Deepwater Horizon oil rig was spilling into the Gulf of Mexico, by significantly understating the flow rate in multiple reports filed with the SEC. The SEC alleges that the global oil and gas company headquartered in London made fraudulent public statements indicating a flow rate estimate of 5,000 barrels of oil per day. BP agreed to settle the SEC's charges by paying $525 million. The SEC plans to establish a Fair Fund with the BP penalty to provide harmed investors with compensation for losses they sustained in the fraud

CFTC will move forward with an appeal of a federal district court's decision vacating the position limits rule. The Commission approved the appeal by a three-to-two vote. In explaining the CFTC's decision, CFTC Chairman Gensler said, "As part of the Dodd-Frank Act, Congress directed the Commission to limit promptly speculative positions in physical commodity futures and options contracts and economically equivalent swaps. The rule addresses Congress' concern that that no single trader be permitted to obtain too large a share of the market, and that derivatives markets remain fair and

The SEC released an advance notice to revise the method for determining the minimum clearing fund size to include consideration of the amount necessary to draw on secured credit facilities. The Options Clearing Corporation ("OCC") filed with the SEC the advanced notice pursuant to Section 806(e)(1) of the Payment, Clearing, and Settlement Supervision Act of 2010 and Rule 19b-4(n)(1)(i). The Commission is publishing the notice to solicit comments on the advance notice from interested persons.