U.S. Treasury Secretary, Jack Lew, urged lawmakers to amend Title VII of Dodd-Frank (the derivatives portion of the legislation). Lew sent letters to Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas), committee chairman, and Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), ranking member, signaling that the Obama administration intends to continue fighting efforts to amend Dodd-Frank. Lofchie Comment: As I say in my comments to the description of the various proposed amendments to Dodd-Frank, the proposals are generally not deregulatory. In fact, two of the proposals are intended to correct what the proponents of the legislation

MFA and AIMA submitted a letter to the CFTC's Division of Clearing and Risk as well as the Division of Swap Dealer and Intermediary Oversight requesting that those Divisions repeal the "Amendment of Interpretation to the Financial and Segregation Interpretation No. 10 on the Treatment of Funds Deposited in Safekeeping Accounts" for futures and options transactions. Essentially, the repeal of the amendment would be intended to allow the use of tri-party arrangements in connection with cleared swaps. In the letter, MFA and AIMA said that their member firms were concerned by the recent MF Global

The Committee on Financial Services is meeting to mark up the following nine bills: H.R. 634, the Business Risk Mitigation and Price Stabilization Act of 2013: this amendment seems intended to fix an inconsistency in Dodd-Frank where (i) certain end users are specifically not required to provide collateral for OTC swaps but (ii) swap dealers are required to collect the collateral; H.R. 677, the Inter-Affiliate Swap Clarification Act: this amendment is intended to exempt certain swaps between affiliates from the clearing and SEF-execution requirements of Dodd-Frank; H.R. 701, To amend a

The SEC announced the panels and panelists for its Credit Ratings Roundtable, which will be held on May 14, and consist of three panels: (i) a Credit Rating Assignment System; (ii) a Rule 17g-5 Program (unsolicited rating); and (iii) Alternative Compensation Models for rating agencies. Click here for more information.

The SEC charged four individuals with ties to a New York City brokerage firm in a scheme involving millions of dollars in illicit bribes paid to a high-ranking Venezuelan finance official to secure the bond trading business of a state-owned Venezuelan bank. Bondi and Clark Comment: There is nothing novel about the charges in this matter or the cooperation between the U.S. Attorney's Office and the SEC. What is interesting here is that an examination by the SEC's broker-dealer examination staff apparently spotted the allegedly illegal payments, rather than a voluntary report by the entity or a