SEC Litigation Release LR-21831 January 31, 2011 The SEC announced the settlement of a case, initially brought in 2001, in which it alleged that the defendant participated in a scheme to manipulate the stock price of a number of penny stocks by (1) agreeing to secret discounts in privately-arranged share transfers and (2) interposing a straw market maker into the market portion of the transaction, which doubled the reported volume of the trades. Exchange Act § 10(b) Exchange Act Rule 10b-5

SEC Release 34-63796 January 28, 2011 The SEC suspended an order declaring immediately effective a Nasdaq proposal that was intended to reduce to the costs of trading by providing "depth of book" data products for Nasdaq firms that service "non-professional" (retail) users with which such firms have a brokerage relationship. The proposal contained a lengthy discussion from Nasdaq regarding competition in the market for transaction execution and routing services and suggested that "dark" markets were exploiting unfair advantages over exchanges, with whom they compete for order flow. The SEC

The clearing house LCH.Clearnet Ltd have published an updated set of general regulations, which act as a rulebook of its systems and procedures. LCH Clearnet Ltd have also published new specific regulations related to EquityClear, the clearing service for equity based trades and equity equivalents. Finally, LCH Clearnet Ltd have published new guidance related to LCH EnClear OTC Clearing Service for Freight. January 27, 2011

U.S. Securities Exchange Commission Summary: The CFTC and the SEC are proposing new rules under the Commodity Exchange Act and the Investment Advisers Act to implement provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act. The proposed SEC rule would require investment advisers registered with the SEC that advise one or more private funds to file Form PF with the SEC. The proposed CFTC rule would require commodity pool operators ("CPOs") and commodity trading advisors ("CTAs") registered with the CFTC to satisfy certain proposed CFTC filing requirements by filing Form PF with the SEC, but only if those CPOs and

SEC Litigation Release LR-21826 January 26, 2011 The SEC announced the filing of civil insider trading charges against a former Galleon trader for his alleged trading ahead of certain acquisitions. The complaint alleges that the insider information came from former attorneys at Ropes Grey, who tipped information to a proprietary trader at a broker-dealer in exchange for kickbacks, and that the information was then tipped from the proprietary trader to Galleon. In related charges, the Galleon trader pled guilty to criminal charges relating to the insider trading scheme. SEC Complaint Exchange