CFTC Chairman Tim Massad announced staff hires as he began his tenure as chair of the CFTC. According to the CFTC press release, the "individuals will work with the chairman to set the agenda of the Commission and to carry out the responsibilities of implementing the Dodd-Frank Act and ensuring compliance with the Commission's regulations." The staff appointments included: Clark Ogilvie, Chief of Staff; Jonathan Marcus, General Counsel; Cory Claussen, Director of Legislative Affairs; Lawranne Stewart, Interim Senior Counsel; and Steven Adamske, Director of Public Affairs. See: CFTC Press

The SEC charged hedge fund advisory firm Paradigm Capital Management ("Paradigm") and its owner with first engaging in prohibited principal transactions, and then retaliating against the employee who reported the trading activity to the SEC. The SEC also charged the firm's owner with causing the prohibited transactions. According to the SEC order, Paradigm's owner conducted transactions between Paradigm and a broker-dealer that the owner also owned while trading on behalf of a hedge fund client. Despite the transactions' posing conflicts between the interests of the adviser and the client

The SEC charged four Northern California residents with insider trading in Ross Stores stock options based on nonpublic information about monthly sales results leaked by one of the retailer's employees. See: SEC Complaint; SEC Press Release. See generally: Insider Trading Materials (available to Cabinet subscribers only).

New and ongoing members were sworn in by Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System ("FRB") Chair Janet Yellen to serve on the FRB. The members are as follows: Lael Brainard was sworn in as a new member of the FRB; Jerome H. Powell was sworn in to serve a second term; and Stanley Fischer, who became a member of the FRB on May 28, 2014 to fill an unexpired term, was sworn in to serve as Vice Chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve. Members of the FRB serve for a term of 14 years. Fischer, Brainard and Powell join Daniel K. Tarullo, whose term expires in 2022, and Chair Janet Yellen, whose

The SEC's Semiannual Regulatory Agenda was published in the Federal Register. Comments on both the agenda and the individual entries must be submitted by July 14, 2014. See: 79 FR 34208.