ICI has filed a brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in connection with its appeal of a federal district court's decision that had rejected ICI's challenge to CFTC amendments to Rule 4.5 (which, among other things, provides certain exclusions from the definition of "commodity pool" and "commodity pool operator"). The CFTC amendments challenged by ICI had reinstated a trading threshold and marketing restriction for registered investment companies ("RICs") claiming an exclusion from the definition of "CPO" under Rule 4.5. (The CFTC had previously rescinded

NFA announced that its Board of Directors had accepted various recommendations made by the Berkeley Research Group ("BRG") that were part of BRG's independent analysis of NFA's audits of Peregrine Financial Group, Inc., the FCM that failed in connection with a massive fraud, and that NFA's staff is developing a plan to act on the recommendations. NFA's Board of Directors will also appoint a special committee to oversee the timely implementation of the recommendations. The recommendations cover a wide range of topics, with particular attention given to NFA's training and procedures, stating

The CFTC released information as to the subject of, and participants in, a number of recent meetings between the CFTC staff and the outside world addressing among other Dodd-Frank topics: (i) position limits, (ii) SEF registration, (iii) real time reporting, and (iv) end-user exceptions. Click hereto view details about the meetings from the last 30 days (links externally to CFTC website).

In a speech at the 11th annual Financial Services Conference, European Commissioner Michel Barnier gave a speech in which he stated that the three key actions needed to give Europe a stronger financial sector are: Building a banking union, Protecting consumers of financial services, and Creating a global level playing field. Click here to view speech in full (links externally to European Commission website). Note: This speech is only available in French.

The CFPB published in the Federal Register final amendments to Regulation B and the commentary to the regulation.Click hereto view our original story on the Final Rule. Effective Date: January 18, 2014. Cross-Reference(s): Dodd-Frank Section 1474 ("Equal Credit Opportunity Act amendment"). View rule release in full: 78 FR 7215.