The CFTC announced that it will make its first award to a whistleblower as part of the CFTC's Whistleblower Program created by Dodd-Frank. The first whistleblower will receive approximately $240,000 for providing information under the Commodities Exchange Act. Whistleblowers are eligible for 10 to 30 percent of the monies collected by the Commission. The relevant press release does not provide further information about the matter in which the whistleblower was involved, which allows the whistleblower to retain anonymity. See: CFTC Press Release; CFTC Whistleblower Program Homepage. See

SEC Commissioner Michael Piwowar spoke at the First Annual Conference on the Regulation of Financial Markets regarding the important role that economic analysis and academic research plays in securities regulation. Commissioner Piwowar stated that, during his tenure at the SEC, he has seen economists become more involved with respect to rulemakings, enforcement and inspections of regulated entities. He explained that the SEC Division of Economic and Risk Analysis ("DERA") provides the foundation of economic analysis, at the front end of tackling regulatory problems, that serves as an essential

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency ("OCC") issued a proposed rule that would raise the semiannual assessment on national banks and federal savings associations ("FSAs") with more than $40 billion in assets. The proposal would increase the marginal assessment rates on asset amounts in excess of $40 billion by 14.5 percent, as well as amend 12 CFR 8 to clarify that the OCC may increase the marginal assessment rates for reasons other than inflationary indexing. The total increase in the assessment amount for an individual national bank or FSA would depend on its total assets, with

SIFMA submitted comments to the MSRB on Regulatory Notice 2014-08, which contains a draft proposal for amendments to MSRB Rules G-1, G-2, G-3 and D-13 that sets professional qualification standards for municipal advisor professionals and requires municipal advisors and their associated persons engaging in municipal advisory activities to be qualified in accordance with MSRB rules. In the comment letter, SIFMA expressed concerns about the draft amendments. In particular, SIFMA stated that persons qualified currently to perform municipal securities activities also should be qualified to perform

The SEC announced charges against four former officials at the clearing firm, Penson Financial Services ("Penson"), for their roles in Regulation SHO ("Reg. SHO") violations. According to the SEC Orders, when Penson loaned securities held in customer margin accounts to third parties and the margin customers sold those securities, it waited until the settlement date (T+3) to recall the stock loans. Rule 204 under Reg. SHO ("Close-Out Requirement") required Penson to purchase or borrow sufficient shares to close out those failures to deliver no later than at the beginning of regular market hours