The CFTC announced that the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California entered a final judgment and permanent injunction against Gordon A. Driver, and his Nevada companies Axcess Automation LLC and Axcess Fund Management LLC. Driver fraudulently solicited over 100 participants in the US and Canada for over $14 million by telling pool participants that he had a successful software program for trading E-mini S&P futures, and that he had profitable returns averaging roughly 20% per month. However, the order finds that Driver traded only $3.7 million of the $14.3 million in pool

CFTC Chairman Gary Gensler testified before the US Senate committee on Agriculture concerning swaps, LIBOR and the Peregrine Financial Group affair. Chairman Gensler repeated his standard message concerning the regulation of swaps under Dodd-Frank, transparency reforms, progress on central clearing for the swaps market, regulating swaps dealers, market integrity and implementing reforms on the cross-border swaps market. Chairman Gensler also reviewed the CFTC's settlement with Barclays on LIBOR. On the topic of the failure of Peregrine Financial Group, Chairman Gensler made clear that any

View release in full here (links externally to SEC website).

The Government Accounting Office issued a report as to the SEC's progress in issuing a rule as to "conflict minerals disclosure." The SEC explained its failure to issue a final rule by reference to a number of factors including its heavy work load and the required "significant learning curve." (On the one hand, the report makes for interesting and horrific reading (with its information as to violence in Rwanda and other countries), but on the other, it is hard to see what expertise the SEC brings to these issues. While the report does not raise the question directly, one does wonder whether

The CFTC is proposing a rule pursuant to its authority under Section 4(c) of the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) allowing cooperatives meeting certain conditions to elect not to submit for clearing certain swaps that such cooperatives would otherwise be required to clear in accordance with Section 2(h)(1) of the CEA. Comments Due: August 16, 2012 Cross Reference: Dodd-Frank Title VII. View rule release in full here (links externally to CFTC website).