HM Treasury February 4, 2011 HM Treasury have published a response to the Commission Services consultation on the Review of Markets in Financial Instruments Directive.

CFTC Testimony Remarks of Chairman Gary Gensler February 10, 2011 CFTC Chairman Gary Gensler testified before the House Committee on Agriculture and spoke on the agency's implementation of Dodd-Frank. He observed that the CFTC has thus far proposed rulemakings in 26 of the 30 areas established last July, and still must propose rules on capital and margin requirements, product definitions (jointly with the SEC) and the Volcker Rule. Gensler also discussed the issue of end user margin: "Transactions involvng non-financial entities do not present the same risk to the financial system as those

February 9, 2011 The European Commission has launched a public consultation on possible measures to strengthen bank capital requirements for counterparty credit risk. The purpose of the measures proposed in this consultation is to strengthen the capital requirements for counterparty credit exposures arising from credit institutions' and investment firms' derivatives, repo and securities financing activities. Specifically, their objective is to raise the amount of capital backing these exposures, reduce procyclicality and provide additional incentives to move OTC derivative contracts to central

News Article Bloomberg February 9, 2011 The House Agriculture Committee will work to ensure Dodd-Frank Act rules for derivatives trading "do not impose undue or excessive burdens" on financial markets, according to a draft of the panel's oversight plan. U.S. Representative Frank Lucas, the Oklahoma Republican who leads the committee, is circulating a document that says the panel will oversee the timetable, cost and benefit of CFTC rules due by mid-July. Panel members are scheduled to consider Lucas's plan at a meeting tomorrow. Cross References Dodd-Frank Act, Title VII

News Article Reuters February 9, 2011 In remarks prepared for the hearing and released by the House Agriculture Committee, CFTC Chairman Gary Gensler said margin requirements would be aimed at swap dealers, not end users, who are exempt from clearing requirements. "Proposed rules on margin requirements should focus only on transactions between financial entities rather than those transactions that involve non-financial end users," Gensler said. Cross References Dodd-Frank Act, Title VII, Secs. 723(a)(7) 731; new CEA Secs. 2(h)(7) 4s(e)(3)(A) CWT C&F Memo: Regulation of End Users of Swaps Under