To the sound advice from Commissioner Pierce, one might add that regulators should not attempt coordination where (i) there is no significant benefit and (ii) otherwise divergent rules and legal systems would make harmonization irrelevant. Protection of seniors is a good example: firms can certainly tailor the way in which they market to seniors so as to meet different types of expectations in the United States vs. the European Union (although fifty different state regimes present…

CFTC Chair Giancarlo's remark that the CFTC had strayed from its prior principles-based approach is notable. The assertion permits re-examination of the CFTC's trading rules with respect to swaps, where the details of the CFTC's requirements arguably diverged substantially from existing market practices and have drawn criticism from both sell- and buy-side market participants.

The settlement of governmental enforcement actions by donation to nonprofit organizations ought to be closely scrutinized, no matter how nice a thing it appears to be. At a minimum, shouldn't there be a transparent process for determining the beneficiaries?

There goes the plan to have those inconvenient records destroyed by not paying those annoying monthly fees. It was like killing two birds with one stone.

More seriously, both parties will need to go back and review their contract in light of the fact that many records have very, very long retention obligations associated with them; e.g., records dealing with AML or with long-term customer contracts.