The SEC Division of Trading and Markets will be holding a Sunshine Act open meeting on October 17 to consider whether to propose capital, margin, and segregation requirements for security-based swap dealers and major security-based swap participants, and amendments to Exchange Act Rule 15c3-1 for broker-dealers. View notice here (links externally to SEC website).

The SEC staff published the attached legal bulletin to provide information and guidance for companies and shareholders regarding Exchange Act Rule 14a-8. Specifically, this bulletin covers: the parties that can provide proof of ownership under Rule 14a-8(b)(2)(i) for purposes of verifying whether a beneficial owner is eligible to submit a proposal under Rule 14a-8; the manner in which companies should notify proponents of a failure to provide proof of ownership for the one-year period required under Rule 14a-8(b)(1); and the use of website references in proposals and supporting statements

The FDIC is issuing a final rule that implements the requirements in Section 165(i) of the Dodd-Frank Act regarding stress tests ("final rule"). Section 165(i)(2) requires the Corporation to issue regulations which require FDIC-insured state nonmember banks and FDIC-insured state-chartered savings associations with total consolidated assets of more than $10 billion to conduct annual stress tests, report the results of such stress tests to the Corporation and Federal Reserve Board, and publish a summary of the results of the stress tests. The final rule requires large covered banks to conduct

Commissioner O'Malia's states that the recent no-action letters and Q&As will provide temporary relief from the compliance deadlines and clarify regulations, although he criticizes the "ad-hoc" nature of the process. He describes the CFTC as having "promulgated thousands of pages of rulemakings in isolation and then resorting to this flurry of hurried staff interpretations in order to provide some measure of temporary comfort to the market." A key quote from the statement: "By the end of the day Commission staff will have released 18 no-action letters and Q&As in an attempt to provide

FINRA has filed with the SEC a proposed rule change to extend the pilot program in FINRA Rule 6730(e)(4) to October 25, 2013. The pilot program exempts from reporting to the Trade Reporting and Compliance Engine ("TRACE") transactions in TRACE-Eligible Securities that are executed on a facility of the NYSE, reported to NYSE, and disseminated publicly by NYSE. View text of rule change here (links externally to FINRA website).