ISDA released the results of its Financial products Markup Language (FpML) survey. FpML is the freely licensed business information exchange standard for electronic dealing and processing of privately negotiated derivatives and structured products. Date February 2, 2011

The House Agriculture Committee will meet next Thursday to discuss rules being developed by the U.S. futures regulator, its first oversight hearing since Republicans took control and promised closer scrutiny of the process. The committee, which historically has had oversight of the CFTC, has signaled it plans to take a close look at the cost of the agency's regulations for businesses. The CFTC is moving too quickly on rules and in an "irrational sequence," said Frank Lucas, chairman of the committee, and Michael Conaway, who heads a subcommittee charged with risk management issues, last week

The SEC charged three AXA Rosenberg entities with securities fraud for concealing a significant error in the computer code of the quantitative investment model that they use to manage client assets. The error caused $217 million in investor losses. AXA Rosenberg Group LLC, AXA Rosenberg Investment Management LLC, and Barr Rosenberg Research Center LLC have agreed to settle the SEC's charges by paying $217 million to harmed clients plus a $25 million penalty, and hiring an independent consultant with expertise in quantitative investment techniques who will review disclosures and enhance the

Jacques Diouf, director general of the U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization, said deregulation during the past 12 years has fueled commodity-market speculation , and that needs to be corrected to curb food price volatility. "We have created an environment that allows pure speculation," Diouf told Reuters Insider TV shortly after the agency said its closely watched Food Price Index had climbed to a record high in January. "I am calling for going back to the regulation that existed (until 1999)." "Buying on the future markets ... buying only the contract and reselling it at higher prices

Comment Letter Date February 1, 2011 SIFMA and the Association for Financial Markets in Europe (AFME) issued a joint comment letter to the IOSCO regarding its recent report on "Issues Raised by Dark Liquidity." The letter provides a general defense of so-called "dark" liquidity and other internalization practices of broker-dealers, arguing that such practices can provide genuine benefits to consumers without detracting from the "overall vibrancy" of displayed markets. Cross References Issues Raised by Dark Liquidity (IOSCO Report, Oct. 2010)