The MSRB filed with the SEC an immediately effective proposed rule amendment to MSRB Rule A-11, to, among other things, establish an annual municipal advisor professional fee. The proposed rule will require a $300 fee per municipal advisor professional to be paid by registered municipal advisors. MSRB stated that this fee will help "defray" the costs and expenses of operating and administering the MSRB, including the increased costs associated with the regulation of municipal advisors. In additionally, the rule will also assess late fees for delayed payments, as well as a transitional

The CFTC Division of Swap Dealer and Intermediary Oversight issued two no-action letters to CPOs of commodity pools regarding their annual report filing requirements. CFTC Letter 14-48 granted exemptive relief to the CPO of a commodity pool from the annual report filing requirements in CFTC Rule 4.22(c), and permitted the CPO instead to file with the National Futures Association ("NFA") and distribute to pool participants by April 30, 2014 an annual report for the commodity pool covering the period from January 1, 2013 to January 31, 2014. CFTC Letter 14-49 granted exemptive relief to the CPO

The CFTC announced that it has approved the application of GTX SEF, LLC (GTX) for temporary registration as a swap execution facility ("SEF"). GTX, a Delaware limited liability company and an indirect wholly owned subsidiary of Gain Capital Holdings, Inc., is the 20th SEF to be registered temporarily by the CFTC to date. The CFTC noted that GTX will be required (as with all future temporarily and fully registered SEFs) to demonstrate continued compliance with applicable provisions of the CEA and CFTC regulations thereunder. As a next step, the CFTC will undertake a substantive review of GTX's

In his speech before the Annual International Institute for Market Development, SEC Commissioner Daniel M. Gallagher discussed cooperation among regulators and post-crisis shortcomings in regulatory harmonization. Stating that "harmonization" has become a euphemism for "forcing nations to accept a unitary set of regulatory standards created by international bodies," Commissioner Gallagher contended that the approach taken thus far assumes not only that there is a single regulatory solution to a problem, but also that, simply by joining together in international forums, "imperfect regulators

At the North American Trading Architecture Summit, SEC Associate Director of the Office of Analytics and Research (Division of Trading and Markets) Gregg E. Berman delivered a speech discussing market complexity, market speed, and research that the Division of Trading and Markets has done to inform both of these topics. Technological advances, Mr. Berman noted, "allow market participants to submit many thousands of quotes in less than a second on our national equity and options exchanges." With the events of the past year in mind, Mr. Berman said, he asked whether the current market structure