CFTC Division of Enforcement Director James McDonald pledged to enforce Commodity Exchange Act ("CEA") provisions that encompass foreign corrupt practices and issued an Enforcement Advisory on cooperation and self-reporting for violations of the CEA pertaining to foreign corrupt practices. In remarks at the American Bar Association's 2019 National Institute on White Collar Crime, CFTC Director of Enforcement James McDonald said that foreign corruption is the type of misconduct that may lead to price alterations and the undermining of domestic markets. He stated: "we are committed at the CFTC

The Federal Reserve Board ("FRB") amended the " capital plan rule" to limit the scope of potential objections to a firm's capital plan on the basis of "qualitative deficiencies in the firm's capital planning process." 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. Separately, the FRB provided instructions for the 18 firms that are subject to the 2019 Comprehensive Capital Analysis and Review ("CCAR") exercise . The FRB's annual CCAR is an evaluation

The U.S. Treasury Department Office of Foreign Assets Control ("OFAC") extended the expiration date of two general licenses with respect to Ukraine-related sanctions. General License 13K, which replaces General License 13J, authorizes certain transactions necessary to divest or transfer debt, equity or other holdings in GAZ Group. All transactions and activities otherwise prohibited by the Ukraine-Related Sanctions Regulations that are necessary to (i) divest or transfer debt, equity or other holdings in GAZ Group to a non-U.S. person or (ii) facilitate the transfer of debt, equity or other

The NFA proposed (i) amendments to NFA Bylaw 301 and NFA Compliance Rule 2-24, and (ii) an Interpretive Notice relating to proficiency requirements for individuals engaged in swaps activities. In general, the amendments require that any individual engaged in swaps activities (whether registered as a swap firm intermediary or swap associated person ("AP")), or simply acting as an AP of a swap dealer, satisfy NFA's Swaps Proficiency Requirements. The NFA proposed to amend: NFA Bylaw 301(I) to specify that "any individual applying for approval" as a futures commission merchant, introducing a

The NFA modified proposed amendments to Compliance Rules and Interpretive Notices to cover transactions and counterparties relating to swaps, as well as other commodity interests ( e.g., futures). ( See here for previous coverage.) Specifically, the NFA withdrew its proposal to amend NFA Compliance Rule 3-1 ("Department of Compliance") that would have deleted that rule's limited purpose definition of commodity interest.