SIFMA today released the following statement from Ira Hammerman, senior managing director and general counsel, regarding the SEC's request for data and other information to help the agency consider whether to write new rules implementing a uniform fiduciary standard of conduct for brokers and investment advisers. "We welcome the SEC's continued focus on this important issue for individual retail investors. We've long supported a uniform fiduciary standard of care for brokers and investment advisers who provide personalized investment advice to individual retail investors. We've been expecting

The Federal Reserve Board published in the Federal Register its requested comment on a proposed rule to amend Regulation HH to set out the conditions and requirements for an FRB to open and maintain accounts for and provide financial services to financial market utilities designated as systemically important by the Financial Stability Oversight Council. The proposed rule, which implements provisions of Dodd-Frank Section 806, would also authorize a Reserve Bank to pay interest on the balances maintained by a designated financial market utility just as a Reserve Bank is able to pay interest to

Federal Reserve Governor Jerome H. Powell gave a speech at the Institute of International Bankers' Annual Washington Conference assessing U.S. and global regulatory efforts to end "too big to fail." Governor Powell stated that such efforts must involve waging a "two-front war": First, there must be enhanced regulation to make large financial institution failures much less likely and, second, there must be a credible mechanism to manage the failure of large firms without causing or amplifying a systemic crisis. Governor Powell went on to survey existing efforts on both of these fronts

The SEC issued (i) a Risk Alert for investment advisers as to compliance with its custody rule and (ii) a related Investor Bulletin designed to inform advisory clients how to monitor their assets and protect their accounts from theft or misuse of their funds and securities by their advisers. According to the SEC, the alert was issued after a review of recent examinations by the SEC's Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations ("OCIE") showed that, among firms that had significant deficiencies, one third had custody-related violations (oddly, the alert does not give a percentage of all

The Treasury will soon publish new forms of Model 1 and Model 2 FATCA Intergovernmental Agreements ("IGAs") that can be used by countries which do not have existing tax treaties or tax information agreements with the United States, International Tax Counsel Danielle Rolfes announced at the Federal Bar Association Tax Section annual conference on March 1. These new forms of IGA will include additional relevant provisions, such as confidentiality provisions and procedural rules, that are typically found in tax information exchange agreements. This new Model 1 IGA will only be in the non