The CFTC amended its rule governing the standards for a self-regulatory organization's ("SRO") financial surveillance examination program of futures commission merchants ("FCMs"). Pursuant to CFTC Rule 1.52, SROs of designated contract markets are required to monitor an FCM member's compliance with the designated contract markets' minimum financial requirements. The amendments adopted by the CFTC revise the scope and frequency of certain requirements of this program. While the amendments still require an "examinations expert" to review the SRO's supervisory standards, it eliminates the current

The CFTC Division of Swap Dealer and Intermediary Oversight ("DSIO") granted no-action relief to swap dealers ("SDs") acting as a prime broker from providing certain disclosures under CFTC Rule 23.431(a)-(b). According to the DSIO, the relief is intended to facilitate more market participants, particularly prime brokers, to trade swaps on swap execution facilities ("SEFs"). The relief covers the situations in which an SD enters into a prime brokerage arrangement with a client in which the client enters into (i) a swap on an SEF (an "on-SEF transaction") and (ii) an offsetting bilateral

SEC Chair Jay Clayton addressed the impact of the European Union's MiFID II research provisions on the availability of investment research to funds and their advisers. In remarks delivered to the SEC Investor Advisory Committee, Mr. Clayton said that in 2017, the SEC issued temporary no-action relief to permit broker-dealers to receive hard dollar payments for research, to the extent required by MiFID II, without having to register under the Investment Advisers Act. Since then, Mr. Clayton noted, certain market solutions have been developed that may make it "unnecessary" to extend the relief

The SEC charged the former chief operating officer ("COO") of a registered investment adviser for allegedly overbilling the firm's clients. According to the Complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, the former COO allegedly stole roughly $6 million from the investment adviser. The SEC alleged that as part of the fraudulent scheme, the former COO misused his role as the investment adviser's COO to overbill clients approximately $750,000 over the course of seven years. The COO was charged with aiding and abetting the investment adviser's violations of the

Federal Reserve Board Vice Chair for Supervision Randal Quarles shared a set of core principles and work priorities for the Financial Stability Board ("FSB"). In remarks delivered at the Joint Conference of the European Central Bank and the Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Mr. Quarles set forth the following key principles that will strengthen the FSB's work: (i) engagement, (ii) rigor and (iii) analysis. Mr. Quarles stated that the FSB must consistently engage with a broad range of stakeholders and experts to perform sufficient analysis, and warned that there could be another crisis if