The U.S. Treasury Department announced that Singapore, Kuwait, Panama, Peru and Indonesia have all agreed recently "in substance" to the terms of a FATCA Intergovernmental Agreement ("IGA"). Each agreement is a Model 1 type agreements whereby financial institutions and investment funds in such a jurisdiction provide account information with respect to account holders and investors that are direct or indirect U.S. persons to the home country for automatic transfer of such information to the U.S. IRS. Pursuant to Announcement 2014-17, these countries will be deemed to have IGAs in effect until

As part of the ramp up to FATCA implementation, the IRS has published revised instructions to Form 1042 ("Annual Withholding Tax Return for U.S. Source Income of Foreign Persons"). Withholding agents will use this form to report payments and amounts withheld under FATCA, as well as traditional withholding taxes imposed for income tax purposes. The revised Form 1042 was published in March 2014. See: Form 1042; IRS Instructions for Form 1042. See also: Cabinet FATCA Materials (for Cabinet subscribers only).For more information, please contact Daniel Mulcahy and Mark Howe.

The MSRB held its quarterly meeting from April 30, 2014 through May 2, 2014, at which it addressed several initiatives to improve the structure, efficiency and transparency of the municipal securities market. Specifically, the MSRB agreed to submit to the SEC a plan to implement a "best-execution" standard for transactions in the municipal market. According to the press release, the rule would establish for the first time an explicit obligation for dealers to use "reasonable diligence" when handling and executing municipal security trades for retail investors to achieve a price that is as

The FINRA-proposed rule change to delay the timeline for the implementation of amended TRACE protocols to disseminate additional Asset-Backed Securities Transactions (SR-FINRA-2013-046) was published in the Federal Register. FINRA filed an immediately effective rule to delay the implementation date in order to provide additional time to complete the technological changes required for the dissemination of additional securities. FINRA stated that it would issue a Regulatory Notice announcing the new implementation date by August 22, 2014. See: 79 FR 25979. Related news: FINRA Proposes to Delay

The FINRA-proposed rule change to amend FINRA Rule 11892 ("Clearly Erroneous Transactions in Exchange-Listed Securities") was published in the Federal Register. FINRA proposes to add new provisions that address the multi-day clearly erroneous events, and transactions that occur during trading halts. Additionally, the amendments would add non-substantive clarifications to the rule. Comments must be submitted by May 27, 2014. The various securities exchanges have proposed similar rule changes (related news item). See: 79 FR 25937. Related news: Proposed Rule Change to Amend FINRA Rule 11892