The SEC has charged the U.S. investment banking subsidiary of Japan-based Mizuho Financial Group and three former employees with misleading investors in a collateralized debt obligation (CDO) by using "dummy assets" to inflate the deal's credit ratings. The SEC also charged the firm that served as the deal's collateral manager and the person who was its portfolio manager. (This enforcement action is related to the Delaware Asset Advisers enforcement action that also appears in today's news.) View release in full here (links externally to SEC website).

The JOBS Act allows small private issuers to advertise and solicit investors while still remaining exempt from securities registration requirements. The MFA submitted comments requesting the CFTC to harmonize CFTC Rules 4.7(b) and 4.13(a)(3) (which provide exemptions from certain regulatory requirements for CPOs of private funds) with the JOBS Act. (A general description of certain provisions of the JOBS Act is is Section 7 of the Blue Sky Registration Requirements Manual.) View notice in full here(links externally to MFA website).

The SEC is adopting Rule 613 under the Exchange Act to require national securities exchanges and national securities associations (“self-regulatory organizations” or “SROs”) to submit a national market system (“NMS”) plan to create, implement, and maintain a consolidated order tracking system, or consolidated audit trail, with respect to the trading of NMS securities, that would capture customer and order event information for orders in NMS securities, across all markets, from the time of order inception through routing, cancellation, modification, or execution. The proposed version of Rule

The SEC announced that a non-profit corporation that offers securities to fund mortgage and construction loans to young Amish families in Ohio will ensure that its investors receive more timely and accurate information. The press release generally indicates that the fund is a good citizen, just not au courant on the securities laws (it had been formed in 1995 "by a group of Amish elders interested in furthering the Amish way of life" and they had not updated its offering materials for a period of 15 years). View press release in full here (links externally to SEC website). Additional Materials

The OCC announced a civil penalty against Capital One Bank for violations of section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act. Additionally, Capital One Bank was ordered to reimburse $150 million to affected consumers. The penalities primarily related to the marketing of services such as debt suspension and cancellation porducts and credit monitoring products. (We note that in our July 18 news, we noted that the CFPB has published a bulleting regarding the marketing of credit card add-on products. A link to that report is in the relevant news item.) View release in full here (links externally to