In a February 27 letter to the IRS, the Chamber of Commerce raised serious concerns with proposed regulations under Section 871(m) of the Internal Revenue Code that, commencing in 2016, would impose a 30% withholding tax on "dividend equivalent payments" made, or deemed made, to non-U.S. investors that own certain derivatives that reference dividend-paying U.S. stocks. According to the Chamber, the instruments covered by the proposed regulations, such as convertible bonds and options, forwards, futures and structured notes (even if there is no dividend component in the instrument), are outside

The CFTC Divisions of Clearing and Risk ("DCR") and Market Oversight ("DMO") issued two no-action letters to certain affiliated counterparties. In CFTC Letter 14-25, the DCR issued a no-action letter extending the time-limited exemption contained in the alternative compliance frameworks available to certain affiliated counterparties pursuant to CFTC Rule 50.52(b)(4)(ii)-(iii) ("Exemption for Swaps Between Affiliates"). On April 11, 2013, the CFTC published a final rule providing an exemption from required clearing for swaps between certain affiliated entities, subject to specific requirements

The SEC charged five executives and finance professionals with facilitating a $150 million fraudulent bond offering by Dewey LeBoeuf, the international law firm where they worked. According to the SEC's complaint, the fraud began in 2008, when senior financial officers started to manipulate various entries in Dewey LeBoeuf's internal accounting system to inflate the firm's profitability by approximately $36 million (15 percent). The SEC cited an example where compensation for certain personnel was falsely reclassified as an equity distribution in the amount of $13.8 million when, in fact

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency ("OCC"), the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System ("FRB") and the FDIC (collectively, the "agencies") issued a final supervisory guidance outlining the principles for the implementation of annual company-run stress tests by banking organizations with total consolidated assets of more than $10 billion but less than $50 billion, pursuant to Section 165(i)(2) of the Dodd-Frank Act and the final rules issued thereunder. The guidance, which is similar to the proposed guidance issued by the agencies last year, discusses supervisory

The SEC approved an exemptive order providing relief to First Trust Dorsey Wright Focus Five ETF ("the Fund") from Exchange Act Rule 10b-17 ("Untimely Announcements of Record Dates"), Rule 101 ("Activities by Distribution Participants") and Rule 102 ("Activities by Issuers and Selling Security Holders during a Distribution") of Regulation M. The First Trust Exchange-Traded Fund VI ("the Trust") is registered with the SEC as an open-end management company, but is requesting an exemptive order from the SEC for the Fund to act as an "ETF of ETFs" by tracking the performance of its underlying