Office of Financial Research ("OFR") Director Richard Berner delivered remarks to the 2014 Financial Stability Conference, discussing the importance of filling gaps in data in order to inform policy for financial stability. According to Director Berner, policy tools, analysis, and data are interconnected: "success in our work must begin with good data" to inform analysis to create good policy. In order to obtain adequate data, Director Berner said the industry needs data standards and to close data gaps. He explained that it is imperative in the financial stabililty policy community to share

The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case involving the Department of Labor ("DOL") altering the interpretation of a rule without undertaking formal notice-and-comment rulemaking procedure under the Administrative Procedure Act ("APA"). The Court is reviewing a U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruling which held that, when an agency has given one of its regulations a definitive interpretation, and later significantly revises that interpretation, the agency has in effect amended the regulation, something it may not accomplish under the APA without public

The SEC announced that the city of Harvey, Illinois has agreed to settle charges stemming from an enforcement action filed in June 2014, which alleged that the city and its comptroller had engaged in a fraudulent bond offering. The SEC complaint alleged that the city and its comptroller had been diverting bond proceeds from prior bond offerings for improper, undisclosed uses. During the investigation, the SEC learned that the city intended to issue new limited obligation bonds, and also that the city had drafted offering documents that made materially misleading statements about the purpose

The SEC issued an Investment Management Guidance Update regarding restrictions that apply to business development companies' ("BDCs") co-investment transactions with certain second-tier affiliates, specifically, limited partners of a partnership that is an affiliated person of the BDC. See: IM Guidance Update.

MSRB-proposed amendments to create baseline standards of professional qualification for municipal advisors were published in the Federal Register. The proposal would, among other things, add two new registration classifications for municipal advisors under MSRB Rule G-3 ("Professional Qualification Requirements"): (i) municipal advisor representatives who are those individuals who engage in municipal advisory activities; and (ii) municipal advisor principals who are those individuals who engage in the management, direction or supervision of the municipal advisory activities of the municipal