The MSRB announced the release of a new education resource intended to provide an introduction to LIBOR and its relevance for the municipal market. It further provides guidance for state and local governments seeking to evaluate transactions with structures based on LIBOR. Lofchie Comment: For the litigation questions, go to page 3. View report in full here (links externally to MSRB website).

The MSRB announced the availability of a new educational resource to help investors and state and local governments understand the use of municipal market indices, yield curves, and benchmarks. View report in full here (links externally to MSRB website).

FINRA Chairman and CEO, Richard G. Ketchum, delivered a speech at the SIFMA Complex Products Forum addressing what he believes is the growing importance of the wide array of complex products in the retail market, and the crucial need to supervise at every stage of the distribution process. Chairman Ketchum discusses the lack of "merit" regulation (i.e., denying retail investors the opportunity to invest in risky or complicated products) in the U.S. as we instead largely rely on disclosure requirements. In the speech, Chairman Ketchum states that some forms of merit-based product approval may

FINRA announced the issuance of a new Investor Alert to explain how, when and why interruptions in trading occur. The alert further discusses both what brokers are required to do and what investors should do in these situations. Lofchie Comment: The alert provides a nice summary of relevant regulations requiring trading halts in different situations; e.g., trading suspensions when there is an information problem as to a company, pauses when a single stock is volatile, market wide circuit breakers, and so on. View investor alert here (links externally to FINRA website). See also: FINRA Press

MFA issued a statement in response to ESMA's publication of its final technical standards for regulation of OTC derivatives, central counterparties, and trade repositories. View statement here (links externally to MFA website). See also: ESMA final technical standards here; MFA comment letters in response to the draft technical standards available here and here.