The CFTC entered an Order against Summit Energy Services, Inc. for acting as an unregistered Community Trading Advisor ("CTA"). The CFTC found that, from at least October 2012 to September 25, 2014, Summit Energy, for compensation or profit, engaged in the business of advising more than 15 clients as to the value of or the advisability of trading in futures contracts and over-the-counter ("OTC") natural gas swaps and held itself out generally to the public as a CTA, without being registered as such with the CFTC. The CFTC Order further found that Summit Energy, through its website and public

The SEC issued a Notice of Designation of Longer Period for Commission Action regarding a FINRA-proposed rule change relating to quotation requirements for unlisted equity securities and deletion of the rules related to the OTC Bulletin Board Service. The Notice was published in the Federal Register. The proposed rule change would adopt rules that: govern the treatment of quotations in OTC equity securities by member inter-dealer quotation systems and address "fair and non-discriminatory access" to such systems; require member inter-dealer quotation systems to provide FINRA with a written

The SEC charged UBS Securities, LLC ("UBS") with disclosure failures and other securities law violations pertaining to the operation and marketing of its dark pool. According to the SEC, the firm failed to properly disclose to all of its dark pool subscribers the existence of an order type used by clients that were market makers and high-frequency trading firms ("HFTs"). The order type at issue allowed clients to submit orders that improved upon the national best bid or offer by a percentage of the current spread. In certain circumstances, the SEC found that this resulted in orders being

SIFMA issued its 2014 Year in Review report, which contains an alphabetic summary (from "commodities" to "Volcker") of the major policy issues taken up by SIMFA last year. See: SIFMA 2014 Year in Review.

The SEC announced that beginning on February 14, 2015, the fee rates applicable to most securities transactions will be set at $18.40 per million dollars. The fee rate will remain at the current rate of $22.10 per million for securities transactions through February 13, 2015, and the assessment on round-turn transactions in security futures will remain at $0.0042 per transaction. Se e: SEC Order; Press Release. Related news: SEC Issues Second Fee Rate Advisory for Fiscal Year 2015 (September 30, 2014); SEC Issues First Fee Rate Advisory for FY 2015 (with Lofchie Comment) (August 29, 2014).