The SEC announced that a whistleblower who helped the SEC stop a multi-million dollar fraud will receive nearly $50,000 - the first payout from a new SEC program to reward people who provide evidence of securities fraud. The award represents 30 percent of the amount collected in an SEC enforcement action against the perpetrators of the scheme, the maximum percentage payout allowed by the whistleblower law. The Dodd-Frank Act authorized the whistleblower program to reward individuals who offer high-quality original information that leads to an SEC enforcement action in which more than $1

Representative Shelley Moore Capito chaired a House Financial Services subcommittee hearing in Charleston, W. Va. addressing how new regulations are affecting financial institutions. The Representative Capito criticized some of the regulations passed in 2010 as part of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law. View Press Release in full here (links externally to Committee on Financial Services website).

ISDA and Markit announced that they are onboarding buy-side market participants to ISDA Amend, their joint technology-based solution that facilitates compliance with certain Dodd-Frank regulatory requirements. The Markit-built solution provides a single online tool that allows swap market participants to simultaneously supplement multiple ISDA Master Agreements, as well as other agreements governing swaps, and to bilaterally exchange the relevant information necessary to facilitate compliance with the External Business Conduct rules applicable to over-the-counter derivatives transactions

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (the "PCAOB") issued a report to describe the progress and significant observations of its interim inspection program for auditors of brokers and dealers registered with the SEC. The program commenced in August 2011 in response to the PCAOB's new authority with respect to inspections, standards setting, investigations, and disciplinary proceedings over auditors of brokers and dealers as provided in the Dodd-Frank Act. The audits inspected were required to be conducted under generally accepted auditing standards ("GAAS") issued by the American

Representative Patrick McHenry, Chair of the TARP and Financial Services Subcommittee, accused Mary L. Schapiro, Chair of the SEC, of abdicating her responsibility and ignoring the will of Congress in implementing Section 201 of the JOBS Act. Section 201 requires the SEC to remove the ban on general solicitation for certain issuers of equity capital. According to McHenry, by issuing a proposed rule (rather than an interim final rule), the SEC is showing it is unlikely to finalize the rule until next year. Under the law, the SEC was required to implement the provision within 90 days of the bill