The European Parliament approved its recommendation allowing for 11 EU Member States to proceed with an Enhanced Cooperation Agreement (ECA) on a Financial Transaction Tax (FTT). The approval now allows the European Union Member States in the Council of the European Union to officially proceed in seeking an ECA on a financial transaction tax plan. MEPs have long advocated an FTT to make financial market players take more responsibility for resolving the crisis that they caused and to discourage excessive risk-taking in the future. According to the press release, "It is not a solution to spare

Financial Services Committee Chairman Spencer Bachus released a statement at a subcommittee hearing on the economic impact of derivatives regulations contained in Title VII of the Dodd-Frank Act. The closing line of the statement was: " The 113 th Congress will have the opportunity to examine if the rules promulgated by the SEC and CFTC can actually work once they are operational or if we will witness regulatory chaos and a flight of capital from the U.S." Lofchie Comment: One point that Chairman Bachus makes that I think important is that Dodd-Frank will have real economic consequences

The SEC granted temporary no-action relief to FINRA Executive Vice President, Member Regulation, Grace B. Vogel from the timeliness requirements for trade confirmation delivery pursuant to Rule 10b-10 [Confirmation of Transactions] under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Lofchie Comment: Substantively, the relief makes perfect sense, but procedurally, it had a couple of interesting aspects: (1) It is FINRA no-action relief as to an SEC Rule. (2) It is retrospective no-action relief. View letter in full here (links externally to SEC website).

The SEC granted no-action relief as to broker-dealers that treat persons who trades their own money through the firm as owners of the broker-dealer for purposes of determining whether such persons are owners of the firm and not customers. The conditions of the relief are set forth below: The Broker-Dealer obtains an opinion of independent legal counsel that (a) it is duly formed, validly existing, and in good standing; and (b) its governing documents, such as its Articles of Formation, By-Laws, Operating Agreement or Partnership Agreement as the case may be, are enforceable in accordance with

SEC Director, Division of Trading and Markets, Robert Cook delivered a speech before the Capital Markets and Government Sponsored Enterprises Subcommittee of the Committee on Financial Services on the ongoing implementation of Dodd-Frank Title VII, and the Commission's efforts to address the application of the security-based swap provisions of Title VII in the cross-border context. See below for topics included in his speech: Ongoing regulatory coordination with the CFTC and other regulators; Adoption of key definitional rules; Adoption of rules related to clearing infrastructure; Proposal of