The North American Tax Committee of ISDA requested that the U.S. Treasury Department ("Treasury") and the IRS postpone the effective date of the soon-to-be-released final regulations under Section 871(m) of the Internal Revenue Code until January 1, 2017. The regulations require that up to 30 percent withholding tax be collected on payments to non-U.S. persons of dividend equivalents under certain equity swaps. The subject equity swaps are referred to as specified "Notional Principal Contracts" ("NPCs"), and other "equity linked instruments" ("ELIs") that reference U.S. dividend paying stocks

FINRA named Erozan Kurtas, Head of Advanced Data Analytics and Senior Vice President. Mr. Kurtas will start at FINRA on February 23, 2015. In his newly created role, Mr. Kurtas will assume responsibility overall for enhancing FINRA's data analytics capabilities. He will work closely with departments across FINRA, particularly Member Regulation – Sales Practice; and Member Regulation – Risk Oversight and Operational Regulation ("ROOR"). FINRA stated that Mr. Kurtas and his team will focus on "improving how FINRA analyzes and uses the data it currently gathers from firms." See: Press Release.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (collectively, the "Regulators") published a simplified supervisory formula tool to assist institutions in calculating risk-based capital requirements for securitization exposures under the revised capital rules. According to the Regulators, the tool is neither required nor a component of regulatory reporting. The Regulators recommended that banks continue to reference the revised capital framework when determining regulatory capital requirements

On February 10, 2015, court filings revealed that Trump Taj Mahal Associates, LLC ("Trump Taj Mahal"), owner of the Trump Taj Mahal Casino Resort in Atlantic City, NJ, reached a settlement with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network ("FinCEN") to pay a civil money penalty of $10 million for deficiencies in its anti-money laundering ("AML") compliance program. The settlement, described in a proposed consent order filed as part of Trump Taj Mahal's Chapter 11 plan, requires the casino owner to admit to repeatedly and willfully violating the program, reporting, and recordkeeping provisions of

SEC Division of Corporation Finance (the "Division") Director Keith Higgins discussed his views on the controversy over conflicting proposals between shareholders and management, and how the SEC should respond with regard to the "directly conflicts" exclusion under Exchange Act Rule 14a-8. His remarks were delivered at the Practising Law Institute Program on Corporate Governance. Although Rule 14a-8 generally requires a company to include a qualified shareholder proposal in its proxy materials, a company may exclude it for one of the 13 reasons described in the rule. According to Mr. Higgins