The SEC charged the co-owner of two Bitcoin-related websites with publicly offering shares in both ventures without registering either of them. According to the SEC Order, the co-owner of SatoshiDICE, a Bitcoin-betting game, and FeedZeBirds, which promised to pay Bitcoins to Twitter users who forwarded its sponsored text messages, published prospectuses on the Internet. According to the Order, the co-owner actively solicited investors to buy shares in the companies on Bitcoin-related websites as well as Facebook. Despite these general solicitations, no registration statement was filed with the

The Senate approved Timothy Massad as the new Chairman of the CFTC, as well as Chris Giancarlo (R) and Sharon Bowen (D) as Commissioners. With Mark Wetjen (D) and Scott O'Malia (R), the CFTC now has a full complement. Both Massad and Giancarlo were approved by voice vote, while Sharon Bowen was approved by a roll call vote of 48 to 46. Click here to see the results of the roll call vote on Commissioner Bowen.

The Managed Funds Association ("MFA") finalized a discussion paper on Article 13(3) of EMIR. The paper explains what the MFA considers to be the key issue regarding the European Commission's adoption of an implementing act on equivalence with respect to the United States. The MFA stated that certain alternative investment funds ("AIFs") which are legally incorporated outside the United States, but are either managed by a U.S.-based manager or majority-owned by U.S. persons, are thus considered "U.S. persons" subject to CFTC derivatives rules. If the European regulators do not regard AIFs as

FINRA filed an amendment ("Amendment No. 1") to its proposed rule change to the FINRA Code of Arbitration Procedure for Customer Disputes and the Code of Arbitration Procedure for Industry Disputes. The SEC approved the rule change, as modified by Amendment No. 1, on an accelerated basis and is soliciting comments on the Amendment. The proposed rule provides that any document which a party files with FINRA and which contains an individual's social security number, taxpayer identification number or financial account number must be redacted to include only the last four digits of any of these

The FINRA Securities Industry/Regulatory Council on Continuing Education released the first podcast in a two-part series titled, "Spring 2014 Firm Element Advisory." In the podcast, FINRA identifies topics they believe firms should consider in their Firm Element training plans, including: anti-money laundering compliance; the accessibility of information in suspicious activity reports; advertising regulation issues; business continuity planning; issue allocations and distributions; expungement of information from the Central Registration Depository; and know-your-customer and suitability