FINRA published in the Federal Register a proposed rule change to adopt FINRA Rule 2081 to prohibit member firms and associated persons from conditioning or seeking to condition the settlement of a dispute with a customer on, or to otherwise compensate the customer for, the customer's agreement to consent to, or not to oppose, the firm's or associated person's request to expunge such customer dispute information from the Central Registration Depository ("CRD"). Comments on the proposed rule should be submitted by May 14, 2014. Lofchie Comment: To a great extent, this rule proposal raises the

On April 22, 2014, a three-judge panel for the Second Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral arguments in United States v. Newman. The issue on appeal is whether, in order to convict a downstream tippee of insider trading, the government must prove that the recipient of material, nonpublic information knew that the insider who leaked the information received a personal benefit for doing so. In light of the tendency of the SEC and Department of Justice to bring charges against the downstream recipients of inside information, the Court's ruling could have significant consequences for the future of

The SEC Division of Corporation Finance updated its Compliance and Disclosure Interpretations ("C&DIs"). Specifically, the Division added: Question 110.01, to discuss communications made in reliance on Securities Act Rule 134 ("Communications Not Deemed a Prospectus"); Question 164.02, to discuss electronic communications relying on the exemption in Rule 165 ("Offers Made in Connection with a Business Combination Transaction"); and Question 232.15, to discuss free writing prospectuses distributed in reliance on Rule 433 ("Conditions to Permissible Post-Filing Free Writing Prospectuses"). See

India announced that it agreed with the United States "in substance" to the terms of a Model 1 Intergovernmental Agreement ("IGA") to implement FATCA. The agreement, which was concluded on April 11, according to the U.S. Treasury, will require financial entities in India to report information on U.S. account holders to the Indian Central Board of Direct Taxes ("CBDT"). The CBDT will then automatically forward such information to the U.S. IRS. The Securities and Exchange Board of India ("SEBI") is expected to issue appropriate guidelines in 2014-2015 to market intermediaries on due diligence

The IRS has issued a private ruling to a publicly traded partnership that the partnership's income, from providing "essential fluid handling services" to oil and gas producers engaged in the exploration, development and production of oil and natural gas, is "qualifying income" for purposes of determining whether the partnership should be subject to tax as a corporation rather than as a partnership for U.S. federal income tax purposes. Under the Tax Code generally, a partnership is taxable as a corporation if interests in such partnership are either (i) traded on an established securities