CFTC Chair Timothy Massad testified before the European Parliament Committee on Economics in Brussels, Belgium. In his testimony, he stressed the need to reconcile differences between the United States and European Union's rules on futures margin methodology, especially regarding the amount of margin that must be turned over to a clearinghouse. According to Chair Massad, the CFTC has created an effective substituted compliance framework to augment the existing program for recognizing EU central clearing counterparties ("CCPs"). If the jurisdictions can work through the rest of their

SIFMA submitted a comment letter to the SEC. In the letter, SIFMA expressed its support of recent BATS-proposed rule amendments involving Regulation NMS. In January 2015, BATS requested that the SEC adopt amendments to Regulation NMS Rules 600(b)(57) ("NMS Security Designation and Definitions"), 605 ("Disclosure of Order Execution Information"), 606 ("Disclosure of Order Routing Information") and 610(c) ("Access to Quotations"). According to SIFMA, the BATS-requested amendments would result in: tiered access fees starting at $0.0005 per share (5 cents per 100 hundred shares); increased order

The SEC announced that it opened registration for outreach programs. The programs are intended to help firms comply with the SEC's rules on Regulation Systems Compliance and Integrity ("SCI"). The programs are tailored to chief information officers, chief information security officers and other senior personnel who are responsible for enhancing their firms' systems compliance and integrity programs. The programs will be held on July 16, 2015 at the SEC's New York Regional Office, and on July 29, 2015 at the SEC's Chicago Regional Office. Events will include panel discussions on the regulatory

The IRS issued Notice 2015-10, in which it announced its intention to amend Treasury regulations to limit refunds and credits of amounts withheld pursuant to chapter 3, chapter 4 and related provisions. Under current law, withholding agents that collect the substantive tax liability of foreign persons (chapter 3 withholding), withhold payments to certain FATCA non-compliant entities (chapter 4 withholding), or withhold amounts that are reported on IRS Form 1042-S are required to deposit the amounts withheld with the U.S. Treasury Department ("Treasury") for specified periods of time. A

SIFMA and ISDA (together, the "Associations") submitted a comment letter to the SEC. In the letter, the Associations discussed the proposed rules, rule amendments and guidance in Regulation SBSR. The Associations noted that ISDA had submitted comments previously; however, because of an administrative error, the rule text of Final SBSR and Proposed SBSR were finalized and approved before full SEC staff review. The Associations stated that their most recent comment letter is intended to reiterate and further clarify any remaining concerns about the SBSR requirements. The letter outlines the