The SEC issued a comprehensive report describing the business and legal structure of the municipal securities markets, with extensive recommendations to help improve the structure of the market and enhance the disclosures provided to investors. In this report, the SEC recommends potential legislation, and identifies potential rulemaking by the SEC or the MSRB. In addition, the report discusses several disclosure issues, including: the timing and content of financial information; disclosures relating to pension and other post-employment benefit plans that create financial risks to issuers

HM Treasury July 30, 2012 The UK Chancellor of the Exchequer has appointed Martin Wheatley, managing director of the Financial Services Authority, as head of an investigation into the framework for the setting of LIBOR. The review is set to focus on: Reforming the current framework for setting LIBOR; Civil and criminal sanctions for offences relating to the setting of LIBOR; and Whether similar measures should be taken with respect to other price-setting mechanisms. It is anticipated that the review will report by the end of this summer, and that its recommendations will feature in the

View rule filing in full here(links externally to FINRA website).

The CFTC, in a court filing, reported that the CFTC/SEC release announcing the adoption of the "swap" definition will be published in the Federal Register on Aug. 13. According to the court filing, that publication will trigger the compliance date for the Position Limit Rule. Of course, it will also trigger compliance with a good number of other CFTC Rules. [SL Comment: Persons wishing further information on the effective date of various CFTC Rules should contact their regular CWT attorney. Persons planning vacations around the relevant effective dates may wish to reconsider travel plans.]

The Board is publishing a final rule, Regulation HH, Designated Financial Market Utilities. This rule implements provisions of Sections 805(a) and 806(e) of the Dodd-Frank Act, including risk-management standards for financial market utilities ("FMUs") that are designated as systemically important by the Financial Stability Oversight Council and standards for determining when a designated FMU is required to provide advance notice of proposed changes to its rules, procedures or operations that could materially affect the nature or level of risks presented by the designated FMU. [SL Comment