The Federal Reserve Board ("FRB") final rule amending the "capital plan rule" to limit the scope of potential objections to a firm's capital plan was published in the Federal Register ( see here for previous coverage). The final rule is effective as of March 13, 2019. The removal of the qualitative objection under the capital plan became effective on March 6, 2019. With the exception for firms that have received a qualitative objection in the immediately prior year, the FRB will not issue a qualitative objection to any firm, beginning on January 1, 2021.

A broker-dealer agreed to settle SEC charges, originally filed in March 2018, for failing to supervise one of its registered representatives and for ignoring various red flags indicating that the representative could be involved in market manipulation. According to the SEC Order, Wedbush Securities, Inc. ("Wedbush") was aware of aspects of a registered representative's manipulative trading of penny stocks, but Wedbush's supervisory policies and implementation systems failed to guide staff on how to properly investigate the activity and had no clear process for how to handle red flags of

The MSRB specified criteria for designating participants in the next required testing of the MSRB's business continuity / disaster recovery (BC/DR) plans. The designated participants will be firms that account for the most activity in specific transaction or market segments. The MSRB will notify designated participants that are obligated to take part in the testing.

The CFTC and the Monetary Authority of Singapore ("MAS") mutually recognized certain derivatives trading venues in the United States and Singapore. At an International Futures Industry Conference, the two parties also announced several related actions. In an Order of Exemption, the CFTC granted relief to five derivatives trading facilities regulated by MAS from the requirement to register with the CFTC as swap execution facilities ("SEFs"). MAS issued regulations exempting certain CFTC-regulated SEFs from the requirement to be MAS-authorized approved exchanges or recognized market operators

CFTC Chair J. Christopher Giancarlo reviewed key items of the agency's agenda, including swaps market reform, cooperation with international regulators and upcoming regulatory proposals. In remarks at the 44th Annual International Futures Industry Conference, Mr. Giancarlo criticized regulatory implementation of G-20 swaps market reforms. In particular, Mr. Giancarlo (i) repeated his concern about the excessive amount of capital that bank regulators require financial institutions to take out of trading markets (specifically addressing the supplemental leverage ratio), (ii) reiterated his view