The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System fined six banking organizations for "unsafe and unsound practices in the foreign exchange ('FX') markets." Additionally, the CFTC announced two enforcement actions against a bank for the attempted manipulation of FX benchmarks and insufficient policies and procedures governing the oversight of the bank's FX traders. See: FRB Press Release; First CFTC Order; Second CFTC Order.
News & Insights
The SEC announced that SEC Chief of Staff Lona Nallengara will be leaving the agency at the end of June. Currently, Mr. Nallengara is the lead advisor to the Chair on all issues involving the SEC, including policy development, rulemaking, strategy and management of the agency. He also serves as SEC deputy to the Financial Stability Oversight Council and is the primary SEC liaison with other financial regulators. See: Press Release.
The House Financial Services Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit held a hearing titled "Protecting Critical Infrastructure: How the Financial Sector Addresses Cyber Threats." The purpose of the hearing was to give members of the Committee on Financial Services (the "Committee") a better understanding of: (i) how the financial sector protects itself from cyber threats, (ii) how market participants coordinate information sharing between themselves and federal agencies, (iii) what types of security measures and standards are in place to prevent breaches, and (iv) what types
The Financial Stability Oversight Council ("FSOC") released its 2015 Annual Report (the "Report") pursuant to Section 112 of the Dodd-Frank Act. The Report summarizes developments over the past year in the broader economy (in Section 4), as well as in various financial markets (in Section 5). The Report describes recent activities by FSOC and significant rulemakings by other financial regulatory agencies (in Section 6), makes recommendations to address structural weaknesses in the U.S. regulatory regime (in Section 3) and discusses emerging threats to the global economy that could necessitate
The MSRB released municipal market statistics for the first quarter of 2015. The statistics show a "sharp decline" in trading. Municipal securities trading volume fell 13 percent in the first quarter of 2015 to $618.5 billion, which is down from $709.8 billion in the first quarter a year ago. See: Q1 Municipal Market Statistics; Press Release.