SEC Chief Accountant Kevin M. Stout delivered a presentation on auditing smaller broker-dealers. The presentation also provided a useful overview of certain of the SEC's recent amendments to its capital and custody rules. In his presentation, Mr. Stout discussed: Broker-Dealer Rulemaking: July 30, 2013 amendments to the SEC Broker-Dealer Financial Responsibility Rules; Broker-Dealer Annual Reporting Requirements prior to the July 30, 2013 amendments to Exchange Act Rule 17a-5 ("Reports to Be Made by Certain Brokers and Dealers"); post-July 30, 2013 amendments to the SEC Broker-Dealer Annual

The IRS and the U.S. Treasury Department ("Treasury") published the initial list of foreign financial institutions ("FFIs") that registered with the IRS and were issued a Global Intermediary Identification Number ("GIIN"). FFIs are required to provide their GIIN to U.S. and non-U.S. withholding agents and such withholding agents are required to check the FFI list to verify the foreign entity's GIIN. The FFI list contains over 77,000 financial institutions initially and will be updated on the first of every month. The IRS announced that FFIs that have not yet registered with the IRS have until

The SEC Office of Investor Education and Advocacy issued an investor alert to help investors avoid fraudulent schemes that may be carried out through investor newsletters. According to the SEC, investor newsletters come in many forms and some are legitimate; however, some are also used to carry out schemes designed to deceive investors, including: touting or promoting a stock without properly disclosing compensation received for promoting the stock; "pump-and-dump" schemes that pump up a company's stock price by making false and misleading statements to create a buying frenzy and then sell

A New York Federal Jury found a hedge fund manager at Wynnefield Capital Inc. ("Wynnefield") and two others not liable for an alleged $1.3 million insider trading scheme, marking the latest courtroom loss for the SEC. The SEC had claimed that the hedge fund manager bought stock illegally in an industrial products supplier after hearing from another Wynnefield employee that the supplier was about to be acquired. The other employee allegedly had learned the information from a former analyst who worked on the merger at underwriter General Electric Capital. Bondi Comment: This verdict is a

The MSRB announced a new tool, on its Electronic Municipal Market Access ("EMMA") website, that is free and is intended to enable investors and other municipal market participants to easily find and compare the trade prices of municipal securities with similar characteristics and view historical trading activity. See: Press Release.