Click hereto watch the hearing live. View notice in full here(links externally to U.S. Senate Banking Committee website). See also: Monday's news item as to the Chicago Fed Study on electronic trading.

According to a study conducted by RAND Center for Corporate Ethics and Governance, although hedge funds worsened the financial crisis in certain ways, the industry did not play a pivotal role compared to other agents (e.g., credit rating agencies, mortgage lenders and issuers of credit default swaps). The report states that most of the research on the impact of the shorting of financial stocks during the crisis concluded that short selling by hedge funds wasn't a major factor in worsening the crisis (despite what some banks' executives argued at the time). In addition, the study suggests that

In this joint comment letter, SIFMA and ISDA made a number of recommendations to the CFTC regarding clearing between affiliates. The particular recommendations are listed below: The trade execution requirement should not apply to interaffiliate swaps; Adopt a more flexible formulation of the proposed documentation requirement; and Eliminate the conditions proposed for collection of variation margin and the extraterritorial clearing of swaps related to interaffiliate swaps. If the CFTC retains the variation margin condition, it should make certain changes and clarifications to the proposed rule

Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs has released a consultation paper on the UK government's intended approach to implementing the commitments made in the UK-US FATCA Agreement. The agreement reflects a commitment by both governments to increase the scope of information automatically exchanged between them, and follows the Model Intergovernmental Agreement signed by the G5 and the US in July. Comments Due: November 23, 2012. Once the consultation process is complete, draft legislation with then be published for further comment.

On September 19th, H.R. 2827 (Amending Exchange Act Provisions Regulating Muni Advisers) passed the House of Representatives and was sent to the Senate for consideration. The purpose of this bill is to amend the Exchange Act in order to clarify provisions relating to the regulation of municipal advisors. Click here to track this bill. View bill in full here (links externally to GPO website). See also: Link on Cabinet to Section 15B (Municipal Securities) of the Exchange Act; September 18 Cabinet news entry.