This case sends a powerful message to service providers and other entities that are not directly regulated by the SEC: they still may be subject to sanction whenever their misconduct or negligence allows another entity to violate a requirement to which the other entity is subject directly.

FINRA's failure to respond to SIFMA's comments in any meaningful way is disappointing, as is the SEC's approval of the rule change despite the absence of any such response. SIFMA's most significant comments addressed the timing of margin delivery and not the substance of the margin requirements; i.e., SIFMA merely asked for the timing of margin delivery under the TBA rules to be conformed to the timing of margin delivery under the rest of Rule 4210.

(Note: Cadwalader represented…

If the CFPB's poor financial reporting record doesn’t seem ironic enough, consider this: the statute that authorizes the CFPB does not give Congress direct control over the CFPB's budget.

That all of this data is materially useful, or worth the cost of its collection, is neither obvious nor apparent. How can the expense of collecting information on the "life cycle" of a swap be justified in terms of helping analysts understand the buildup of risk in a system – especially when point-in-time data on outstanding notional amounts can be harvested far more cheaply?