CFTC Commissioner Scott D. O’Malia delivered a statement on Swap Execution Facilities (SEFs), explaining why he was "reluctantly" concurring with the decision of the Commission to approve the final rule. In his statement, O'Malia discussed how a SEF will allow market participants to access a more transparent market and offer innovative trading opportunities. Unlike the futures exchanges which are tied to a single clearinghouse, trades executed on SEFs can be cleared at different clearinghouses, which will provide a new competitive execution space, according to O'Malia. He also discussed what

SEC Commissioner David Gallagher delivered a speech before the European Corporate Governance Company Law Conference, in which he focused on the increasing role that governments play in corporate governance as well as the increasingly prominent influence of proxy advisory firms on how companies are governed and on how shareholders vote. In his speech, Commissioner Gallagher stated that reactive legislation (as with Dodd-Frank) and the resulting regulatory mandates are often based upon false narratives and in the end "lead to the expansion of a universal law: the law of unintended consequences."

We have attached a summary, prepared by Delta Strategy Group, of the status of various legislative proposals relating to the JOBS Act and Dodd-Frank, as well as the proposal that would require the SEC to conduct cost-benefit analyses. See : Description of Financial Services Committee Markups of Bills Related to Dodd-Frank, JOBS Act, and SEC Accountability Overview. (This description was prepared by Delta Strategy Group.) Related news items :Capital Markets GSE Subcommittee Chairman Scott Garrett released a video about H.R. 1062, the SEC Regulatory Accountability Act. Link here (links

The Managed Funds Association (MFA) and the Alternative Investment Management Association (AIMA) submitted a letter to BaFin, the German regulator, on the interpretation of the German High Frequency Trading Act. In the letter, MFA and AIMA requested that BaFin issue guidance that an investment manager trading on behalf of its funds would not be interpreted to be "dealing on own account" and subject to the definition of high frequency trading and the associated licensing regime. View letter in full here (links externally to MFA website).

On May 16, 2013, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, in NLRB v. New Vista Nursing Rehab., ruled as unconstitutional the recess appointment process used by President Obama to fill a spot on the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) during a 2010 intrasession break.The Third Circuit, in a 2-1 decision, reached the conclusion based on similar reasoning as adopted by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in its January 2013 unanimous decision invalidating three other NLRB recess appointments made in 2012 ( NLRB v. Noel Canning). These two appellate decisions raise continuing