The SEC held its inaugural roundtable in the Financial Reporting Series. The SEC stated that the purpose of the Financial Reporting Series is to identify risks and potential improvements in the financial information provided to investors.
The SEC ordered the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) to hire an independent consultant and undertake other remedial measures to improve its policies, procedures, and training for producing documents during SEC inspections. According to the SEC’s order instituting settled administrative proceedings, certain documents requested by the SEC’s Chicago Regional Office during an inspection were altered just hours before FINRA’s Kansas City District Office provided them.
SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro and Martin Wheatley, the Managing Director of the Conduct Business Unit at the U.K. Financial Services Authority (FSA), co-hosted a meeting among regulators from Europe, the Americas, Asia, and Australia to share views on issues pertaining to equity market structure.
The SEC voted to propose rules that lay out the process by which security-based swap dealers and security-based swap participants must register with the SEC. The rules stem from Title VII of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank Act).
In Fiero v. FINRA, No. 09-1556-cv (2d Cir. Oct. 5, 2011), the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held that FINRA and other self-regulatory organizations lack the authority to bring federal court actions to collect on their disciplinary fines. Therefore, FINRA can levy fines, but it cannot enforce collection of those fines in court.
The SEC named Kara Novaco Brockmeyer as Chief of its Foreign Corrupt Practices Act Unit, which focuses on violations of the anti-bribery provisions of the federal securities laws. Ms. Brockmeyer has been serving as an Assistant Director in the SEC’s Enforcement Division and supervising a number of complex investigations involving violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). That law prohibits U.S. companies from bribing foreign officials to obtain government contracts and other business.
The SEC is amending its rules to reflect the consolidation of the SEC’s Office of the Executive Director with the SEC’s Office of the Chief Operating Officer, including amendments to replace references to the Executive Director with references to the Chief Operating Officer.
The SEC charged Spencer D. Mindlin and his father, Alfred C. Mindlin, with insider trading. The SEC’s Division of Enforcement alleges that Spencer Mindlin conveyed material nonpublic information that he obtained in the course of his duties as an employee of Goldman, Sachs & Co. to his father, Alfred Mindlin. Spencer and Alfred Mindlin then traded based on this information in a brokerage account in the name of a family member and in Alfred Mindlin’s brokerage account.
SEC voted to propose a rule intended to prohibit certain material conflicts of interest between those who package and sell asset-backed securities (ABS) and those who invest in them.
