Over the past year, the SEC received more than 3,000 whistleblower tips from all 50 states and from 49 countries, according to the agency's 2012 Annual Report on the Dodd-Frank Whistleblower Program. The report notes, among other things: The SEC made its first award under the new program to a whistleblower who helped the SEC stop an ongoing multi-million dollar fraud. The whistleblower received an award of 30 percent of the amount collected in the SEC's enforcement action, which is the maximum percentage payout allowed by law. The SEC received 3,001 tips, complaints and referrals from

The Director of the SEC's Division of Enforcement, Robert Khuzami, delivered remarks during news briefing about the SEC-DOJ FCPA Guide. According to Director Khuzami, the SEC should reward companies that adopt compliance programs which are effective in preventing violations, and the SEC is not going after the "$5 cup of coffee, or the one-off $50 gift to a public official . . . but payments of real and substantial value that clearly represent an unambiguous intent to bribe a foreign official to obtain or retain business." View remarks in full here (links externally to SEC website). See also

The SEC issued its second annual staff report on the findings of examinations of credit rating agencies registered with the SEC as Nationally Recognized Statistical Rating Organizations ("NRSROs"). The staff determined that, with one exception, all NRSROs appropriately addressed the staff's recommendations in the first annual report in 2011. The 2012 report discusses the staff's findings and recommendations in eight areas, including whether the NRSRO conducts business in accordance with its policies, procedures, and methodologies, how it manages conflicts of interest, and whether it maintains

ICE Futures U.S. released an exchange notice regarding the announcement of a rulebook amendment and position limit changes. ICE filed the amendment to its regulatory rulebook pursuant to Section 5c(c)1 of the Commodity Exchange Act and Regulation 40.6 [Self-certification of rules]. The amendment provides language in Rule 6.20 "Position Limits, Conditional Limits and Position Accountability for Energy Contracts" to clarify the effective dates for position limits. View notice in full here (links externally to ICE website).

FINRA Executive Vice President Thomas M. Selman delivered a speech on regulatory policy at the Investment Program Association Fall Conference in Washington, D.C., in which he discussed his support for the SRO model of regulation. The background of his talk, or maybe the foreground, was the assumption that insufficient governmental resources are available to regulate investment advisers adequately. Thus, a question has arisen as to whether investment advisers should be regulated only by the SEC (which would, as a practical matter, require greater funding of the SEC) or also by an SRO (very