SIFMA submitted comments to the U.S. House Financial Services Committee, urging the Committee to approve the Restoring Proven Financing for American Employers Act (H.R. 4167). According to SIFMA, the drafting of the final Volcker Rule called into question whether or not debt securities issued by collateralized loan obligations ("CLOs") are prohibited ownership interests in covered funds. H.R. 4167, introduced by Congressmen Andy Barr (R-KY), would provide an "important clarification" of how the Volcker Rule should affect the securitization of commercial loans. SIFMA stated that if the

SIFMA submitted comments to the MSRB regarding the draft best execution rule, including the exception for transactions with sophisticated municipal market professionals. SIFMA stated that it supports an execution standard for the municipal market that is structurally similar to FINRA Rule 5310 ("Publication of Transactions and Quotations"). In the letter, SIFMA disagrees with applying equity-based execution standards to the municipal market. Instead, SIFMA argued that rules and standards involving execution should reflect their "fundamental limitations and objects to rules that implicitly or

Three legislative proposals to amend the Commodity Exchange Act ("CEA") have been introduced in the House. All three bills focus on specific parts of the CEA. H.R. 677 - "Inter-Affiliate Swap Clarification Act" - would exempt swaps between certain affiliated entities within a corporate group and swaps between companies or subsidiaries that share some level of common ownership from the clearing and trade execution requirements of CEA Section 2(h), and applicable margin and capital requirements of CEA Section 4s(e). The bill would also clarify that, for purposes of defining "swap dealer" or

The Mercatus Institute, a public policy research center affiliated with George Mason University, released a paper by Dr. Adam Ozimek, Director of Research and Senior Economist at Econsult Solutions, Inc., entitled "The Regulation and Value of Prediction Markets," which examines the role, purpose and performance of "prediction markets" that allow participants to buy and sell contracts on specific events, such as the outcome of presidential elections. The paper finds that such markets are important information-aggregation tools for researchers, businesses, individuals, and governments and have

The CFTC published in the Federal Register a correction regarding the November 2013 final rules enhancing customer protections with funds held by futures commodities merchants ("FCMs") and derivatives clearing organizations ("DCOs"). The correction amends Appendix E to Part 30 to fix a typographical error. Specifically, the phrase "lines or credit" should read "lines of credit." See: 79 FR 14174. Related news: CFTC Publishes Final Rules Enhancing Customer Protections (Fed. Reg.) (November 14, 2013).