Financial Times August 16, 2011 The CME Group and IntercontinentalExchange are squaring off over new rules for commodities trading. At issue are proposed rules that would prevent speculators from amassing futures contracts totaling more than 25 per cent of the deliverable supply of a commodity in the days leading up to expiry. But speculators could hold five times as many contracts if they settle only in cash, and do not result in delivery. CME, in a letter dated Monday, opposed the more generous limits for cash-settled contracts, saying they increase the threat of price manipulation and were

Financial Services Authority August 15, 2011 The Upper Tribunal (Tax and Chancery Chamber) has directed the FSA to fine Michiel Weiger Visser £2 million and Oluwole Modupe Fagbulu £100,000 and ban them both from performing any role in regulated financial services for breaching Principle 1 of the FSA's Statements of Principle for Approved Persons and for engaging in market abuse. Visser was the CEO and Fagbulu CFO and compliance officer of Mercurius Capital Management Limited (" Mercurius"). Mercurius managed the hedge fund Mercurius International Fund (" the Fund") which during the relevant

EUR-Lex August 12, 2011 Text relating to the following legislative resolution has been published in the Official Journal of the European Union: European Parliament legislative resolution of 17 June 2010 on the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Directives 2003/71/EC on the prospectus to be published when securities are offered to the public or admitted to trading and 2004/109/EC on the harmonisation of transparency requirements in relation to information about issuers whose securities are admitted to trading on a regulated market.

August 16, 2011 On pages 15-18, the editor discusses the CFTC IG report on the agency's failure to engage in meaningful cost/benefit analysis in its Dodd-Frank rulemaking, stating that "key aspects of Dodd-Frank implementation now have real potential to be scuttled." "But we are now convinced that the CFTC will likely find itself hauled into court to explain to a judge why exactly it didn't feel the need to perform the necessary cost-benefit analysis to key rules now under consideration. Considering all the work that agency staff, commissioners and market participants have funneled into this

August 11, 2011 The U.S. Senate is expected to move quickly in September to approve the nomination of Mark Wetjen as a Democratic commissioner at the U.S. futures regulator, a move that could prove crucial as the agency implements a range of sweeping new Wall Street reforms. The earliest the full Senate could move to confirm Wetjen was Sept. 6 when it returns from a nearly month-long recess. The 37-year-old Wetjen would replace outgoing Commissioner Michael Dunn, a Democrat known as an independent voice on the CFTC, which has two Republican commissioners and two Democratic commissioners