On May 29th, the SEC issued findings and imposed a ten million dollar fine against Nasdaq as a result of Nasdaq's technical problems in connection with the Facebook IPO and Nasdaq's responses to those problems. Chris Clearfield of System Logic will undertake a series of articles that examine the technical details of the error, NASDAQ's decision-making, and the broader implications, from the standpoint of technology and processes around technology, of the SEC's findings. The first such article, which discusses the core technology problem that led to the other problems is linked to below

Janet L. Yellen, Vice Chair of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, gave a speech discussing domestic and international regulatory reform efforts in the wake of the financial crisis. After summarizing the progress that the Federal Reserve and other regulators have made in recent years, Vice Chair Yellen discussed the "principal pieces of unfinished business" in global financial regulatory reform, which she divided into the following categories: Strengthening the basic bank regulatory framework: Vice Chair Yellen highlighted the need to continue supporting the efforts of the

The SEC approved amendments to the definition of public arbitrator in the Customer and Industry Codes of Arbitration Procedure. The amended definition excludes persons associated with a mutual fund or hedge fund from serving as public arbitrators and requires individuals to wait for two years after ending certain affiliations before FINRA may permit them to serve as public arbitrators. The amendments are effective on July 1, 2013, and apply to all cases in which FINRA has not sent to the parties lists of chair-qualified public arbitrators and public arbitrators for arbitrator selection

The U.K. on May 31, 2013, issued revised draft regulations and Guidance Notes with respect to implementation of its Intergovernmental Agreement ("IGA") with the United States. Initial draft regulation and Guidance Notes were issued in December 2012. See: U.K. Draft FATCA Regulations. See also: U.K. Draft FATCA Regulations - Guidance Notes.For more developments as to FATCA, see "Current Topics - FATCA."

The SEC announced the second-largest trading suspension in agency history as it continued its "Operation Shell Expel" crackdown against the manipulation of microcap shell companies. The SEC suspended trading in the securities of 61 empty shell companies that are delinquent in their public filings and seemingly no longer in business based on an analysis by the SEC's Microcap Fraud Working Group. See: SEC Press Release. See also: List of the 61 Companies; Trading Suspension Order; Investor Bulletin: Trading Suspensions.