The Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee of the U.S. Committee on Appropriations held a hearing titled "FY16 Budget Requests for the SEC CFTC." SEC Chair White and CFTC Chair Massad each testified about their agency's funding request and budget justification. In her testimony, Chair White indicated that security-based swaps, crowdfunding and executive compensation rulemakings are priorities for the SEC in 2015. She also stated that the SEC is discussing the creation of public guidelines on whether enforcement cases should be brought to administrative law judges or federal

In an article titled "Flawed Math on Student Loans," Center for Financial Stability ("CFS") guest contributor Kate Flanagan discusses the available data on student loans issued by the federal government. She suggests that significant losses could result from the "coming wave of defaults." According to Ms. Flanagan, student loans comprise the second largest category of U.S. consumer debt. She states that the U.S. government "chose to largely remove banks" from the student lending process while also increasing the number of federally backed loans made without screening criteria. Ms. Flanagan

CFTC Commissioner Sharon Y. Bowen spoke at the Managed Funds Association's 2015 Compliance Conference. She focused her remarks on governance. Commissioner Bowen explained that Dodd-Frank Section 726 required the CFTC to issue rules that potentially impose "numerical limits on the control of, or the voting rights with respect to, any derivatives clearing organization that clears swaps, or any swap execution facility or board of trade that is sufficiently involved in the swaps market." Commissioner Stein explained that the CFTC has not passed a governance rule proposal in the five years since it

The CFTC announced that the Market Risk Advisory Committee ("MRAC") will hold a public meeting on June 2, 2015. The MRAC, which is sponsored by CFTC Commissioner Sharon Bowen, will discuss issues related to (i) the appropriate industry response to current and potential cybersecurity threats, and (ii) the concentration of futures commission merchants and its effect on, and other factors currently affecting, market liquidity. Members of the public who wish to submit written statements regarding the meeting should do so by June 9, 2015. See: CFTC Press Release; 80 FR 25674.

The SEC granted a waiver to a European bank from ineligible issuer status. The bank's ineligibility was triggered by its criminal conviction for manipulating LIBOR in order to maintain its well-known seasoned issuer ("WKSI") status. The SEC explained that under Securities Act Rule 405, a firm's WKSI status is automatically revoked because of its criminal misconduct absent a waiver from the SEC. In the SEC's waiver order, the SEC determined that the bank "made a showing of good cause" and so would not be considered an ineligible issuer if it complied with the terms of a plea agreement. SEC