The City of Providence, RI, filed a putative class action complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, naming as defendants 16 different national securities exchanges, 12 major securities brokers, and 11 High-Frequency Trading ("HFT") firms. The Plaintiff, in the case titled City of Providence v. BATS Global Markets Inc., et al., claims to represent every class of investor who bought or sold stock on a U.S. exchange from April 2009 through the present. The defendant class is only slightly smaller. The allegations in the complaint are generally derivative of

FINRA issued a regulatory notice indicating that it will assess and collect a total of $6 million to adequately fund the Governmental Accounting Standards Board's ("GASB") annual budget by collecting $1,539,775 from its member firms on each calendar quarter beginning in April 2014. In February 2012, FINRA established (see FINRA Regulatory Notice 12-15) an accounting support fee to adequately fund the annual budget of the GASB. The GASB Accounting Support Fee is collected on a quarterly basis from its member firms that report trades to the MSRB. Each member firm's assessment is based on the

SEC Commissioner Luis A. Aguilar delivered a speech, as a part of the Corporate Governance Lecture Series at the Emory University School of Law, in which he asserted that, in order to restore trust between Wall Street and Main Street, it is crucial to have corporate governance practices that foster the principles of (i) accountability, (ii) transparency and (iii) engagement. Framed within the context of the executive compensation process, Commissioner Aguilar stated that these principles should drive the establishment of an effective corporate governance regime, and highlighted a few of the

The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System ("FRB") announced the issuance of a Consent Order of Prohibition against a former President and Chairman of the Board of a bank holding company, Calvert Financial Corporation. In addition to consenting to the FRB's order, the former President pled guilty to a criminal charge in connection with the case. According to the Consent Order, Darryl Woods engaged in violations of law in connection with his use of $1,037,000 in bailout funds received by Calvert through the Troubled Asset Relief Program ("TARP"). The Consent Order states that roughly

The CFTC Division of Swap Dealer and Intermediary Oversight ("DSIO") issued four separate no-action letters to commodity pool operators ("CPOs") providing relief from Annual Report filing and certification requirements. CFTC Letter 14-51 granted relief to a CPO of commodity pools from the Annual Report filing and certification requirements in CFTC Rules 4.7(b)(3) and 4.22(d), allowing the CPO to distribute and file a 15-month combined Annual Report covering the period from inception of trading on October 1, 2013 through December 31, 2014. CFTC Letter 14-52 granted relief to a CPO of commodity