The SEC filed an amicus brief in support of appellant and former Siemens A.G. compliance officer, Liu Meng-Lin, who brought a lawsuit against Siemens claiming that its Chinese subsidiary used kickbacks to boost medical equipment sales. On October 21, 2013, U.S. District Judge William Pauley dismissed the lawsuit, ruling that Dodd-Frank's anti-retaliation protections for whistleblowers do not apply outside the United States. The SEC amicus brief urged the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit to defer to the SEC rule that clarified "an ambiguity in the whistleblower employment anti

The SEC granted approval of a FINRA rule amendment regarding its Capacity Management Plan (the "Plan"). The SEC noted that the rule change was published for comment in the Federal Register on January 8, 2014, but received no comments. To ensure that the Alternative Display Facility ("ADF") has sufficient capacity to handle the volume of quotes, order and trade data submitted to the ADF, without maintaining unused data capacity, FINRA proposed to adopt the Plan for those FINRA members that opt to utilize the ADF for quoting and trade reporting. Pursuant to the Plan, each ADF Trading Center

SIFMA Listed Options Trading Committee submitted comments to the SEC and all U.S. Options Exchanges ("Exchanges") regarding the proposal to create a permanent Penny Trading Program ("Penny Program") to replace the current Penny Pilot Program. In the letter, SIFMA recommended that Arca and the other Exchanges submit a proposed rule change to the SEC that would create a permanent Penny Program. SIFMA stated that it is critical for each Exchange to adopt uniform rules with respect to the number of multiply-listed options classes that trade in pennies and the methodology to move classes in and out

SIFMA submitted an amicus brief to the U.S. Court of Appeals in support of Household International Group ("defendant") regarding the Glickenhaus Institutional Group's ("plaintiff's") attempt to expand implied private action under Exchange Act Section 10(b) ("Manipulative and Deceptive Devices") by diluting "the requirement of loss causation" and extending liability to secondary actors who did not "make" actionable statements. SIFMA explained that the plaintiff's actions are impermissible, stating that it submitted the brief because the court's decision cannot be reconciled with the Supreme

SIFMA submitted two separate comment letters to the SEC regarding the proposed rule changes to modify the NYSE ArcaBook fees and the Nasdaq Last Sale product, respectively, petitioning for the SEC to temporarily suspend both rule changes and institute proceedings to disapprove them. According to the letters, both proposed rule changes were filed by Nasdaq for immediate effectiveness; however, the rule and Nasdaq's actions are inconsistent with the standards established by the decision in NetCoalition v. SEC and, therefore, the SEC should "immediately suspend the effect of this and other