SEC Commissioner Gallagher issued a statement to Polish securities regulators regarding drafting and implementing the country's new securities laws. Commissioner Gallagher briefly mentioned topics that are important to all securities regulators. He mentioned that capital markets must remain risk-taking markets, stating that eliminating risk eliminates opportunity, which can quash individual initiative and economic dynamism. Furthermore, Gallagher emphasized that regulators must strike a balance between protecting investors and maintaining efficient markets. He noted that the rules regulators

The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, J. Russell George, has released a report calling for improvements to be made to the Foreign Financial Institution Registration System ("FRS") that is being developed to register foreign financial institutions, increase annual enforcement revenue, and support the IRS' new overall information system under FATCA. According to the report, the FRS is a major information technology investment for the IRS. The goal of the investigation was to determine whether the IRS' systems development approach for the FRS is sufficiently mitigating risks with

The SEC Division of Corporate Finance issued a standard form no-action letter relief to RBS Securities regarding a waiver request pursuant to Securities Act Rule 262("Disqualification Provisions") of Regulation A and Securities Act Rule 505 ("Exemption for Limited Offers and Sales of Securities Not Exceeding $5,000,000") and Rule 506 ("Exemption for Limited Offers and Sales without Regard to Dollar Amount of Offering") of Regulation D. The SEC stated that RBS Securities requests relief from disqualifications from exemptions available under Regulation A and Regulation D that arose by reason of

The National Futures Association ("NFA") filed three separate proposed amendments with the CFTC in regard to: (i) NFA Financial Requirements Section 8 ("Additional Information Requests"), (ii) NFA Registration Rule 201 ("Registration Requirements and Procedures") and Rule 203 ("Registration Fees"), and (iii) NFA's Interpretive Notice entitled "Compliance Rule 2-30(b): Risk Disclosure Statement for Security Futures Contracts." The amendments to Financial Requirements Section 8 add a substantially open-ended requirement that each registered FCM and forex dealer member for which NFA is the DSRO

MFA submitted a supplemental comment letter to the CFTC regarding various SEF-amended Made-Available-to-Trade (MAT) submissions. In the comment letter, MFA stated it supports the revisions made by Javelin SEF and TW SEF in their amended MAT determinations. MFA stated that the amended determinations which focus on spot-starting Benchmark Swaps are closely aligned to MFA's phase-in approach which it recommended in a previous comment letter. MFA explained that a phase-in approach strikes the appropriate balance by "bringing the benefits of SEF trading to the most liquid products" while ensuring