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The securities industry misinterpreted rules it assumed allowed as many as nine months to start moving swaps into clearinghouses that are meant to limit risks to the financial system. Firms dealing in $648 trillion of outstanding swaps contracts expected that trading during a phase-in period wouldn’t need to be processed by central clearinghouses, according to an Oct. 5 [...]
The European Union may consider pushing back when lenders need to start phasing in tougher Basel bank-capital rules by as much as a year after warnings that pressing ahead with the original timetable may drive up costs, according to three people familiar with the talks. EU lawmakers and officials, facing a Jan. 1 international deadline for incorporating the rules, [...]
Exchange and investment professionals discussed the use of “kill switches” – automated switches that would turn off trading at securities firms when their volume exceeded preset maximums – during a roundtable this week hosted by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Regulators are under pressure to prevent “kill switch” computer and software malfunctions from harming markets. Roundtable participants [...]
Last week’s decision by a federal judge to block the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s speculation limits rule is the latest example of the key role that cost-benefit analyses have played in post-crisis regulatory proposals. U.S. District Court Judge Robert Wilkins ruled that it was not “plain and clear” that the Dodd-Frank Act allowed the CFTC to [...]
Securities firms will find it harder to monitor their employees’ social media websites for evidence of mis-selling or other regulatory violations in states considering new privacy laws, say regulators, securities firm managers and regulatory attorneys. The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (Finra) wrote in a letter to a California assemblywoman that her privacy legislation, which Governor Jerry Brown [...]
The core capital of Mexico’s five largest banks and its banking system is already consistent with Basel III rules, a Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas report showed. The report said banks still fall short of standards for non-core capital, as subordinated debt made up 81 percent of the system’s other capital and 10 percent of total capital as [...]
A U.S. Senate panel probing the multibillion-dollar trading loss by JPMorgan Chase & Co. plans to unveil its findings at a hearing this year to press regulators to tighten the Volcker rule, according to three people briefed on the matter. Staff members of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, headed by Senator Carl Levin, have interviewed JPMorgan officials [...]
The percentage of workers who say they witnessed Foreign Corrupt Practices Act violations at their firms almost doubled from 2009 to 2011 as post-financial crisis regulations have enhanced awareness and enforcement of the anti-bribery law, according to a report from the Ethics Resource Center (ERC). In 2011, 9 percent of respondents to the biennial ERC survey [...]
Carlo di Florio, director of the SEC’s Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations, discusses with Dana Wilkie the risk alert his office issued last week. The alert warned that firms may be violating Rule G-37 by doing business with municipal securities issuers within two years of their municipal finance professionals making contributions of more than $250 to the issuers’ elected officials. Q: Rule [...]
