Twenty-four member firms of ISDA, MFA and SIFMA pledged to begin clearing their single-name credit default swap ("CDS") trades voluntarily through central counterparties. "The commitment by the major buy-side firms to move to central clearing will create efficiencies and increase transparency in the single-name CDS market" said Scott O'Malia, ISDA's Chief Executive.

SEC Division of Investment Management ("IM") Director David Grim summarized the SEC's 2015 rulemaking initiatives in derivatives, liquidity management, and registered funds reporting, and the SEC's 2016 rulemaking agenda on transition planning and stress testing. At the Investment Company Institute 2015 Securities Law Development Conference, Director Grim urged securities regulators not to "rest on [their] laurels" during the upcoming year. Director Grim highlighted the following SEC 2015 initiatives: Enhancing Derivatives Regulation. SEC staff has been evaluating whether the current

The CFTC voted unanimously to approve two proposals to amend existing regulations that address cybersecurity testing and safeguards for automated systems. The approved proposals would (i) require that exchanges, clearing organizations, swap execution facilities and swap data repositories conduct tests of cyber protections; (ii) set forth the kinds of tests that must be conducted and the frequency of the testing periods, and determine whether the tests should be conducted by independent parties; and (iii) establish standards for incident response planning and enterprise technology risk

The Futures Industry Association ("FIA") announced that it will hold a webinar today to discuss the CFTC's newly proposed rules on automated trading ("Regulation AT"). The webinar, titled "Understanding Reg AT," will take place on December 16, 2015 from 3:30 p.m. to 4:45 p.m. EST. The webinar will identify market participants that would be impacted by Regulation AT. The FIA stated that proposed Regulation AT would: require certain algorithmic traders to register with the CFTC; require CFTC registrants who engage in automated trading to establish risk controls and comply with rules regarding

FINRA reminded firms of their Annual Audit, Financial and Operational Combined Uniform Single ("FOCUS"), Form Custody and supplemental FOCUS Report filling obligations. The notice provides dates on which filings will be due in 2016 and in the first quarter of 2017.