Financial Industry Regulatory Authority
Redesigned FINRA Website
In March, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (“FINRA”) announced the launch of its newly redesigned website. Two key factors were the driving force behind the updates to the website: improve the user-experience of BrokerCheck and creating a more mobile-friendly interface to address the increase traffic to the website from mobile devices.
The launch of the website was announced in a March 16th press release. The press release included a quote from FINRA Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Richard Ketchum in which he states that the new website “demonstrates our commitment to providing a more engaging experience for users to more easily find the tools and resources they need such as BrokerCheck, investor education and important information about registration and qualification exams. It features a simpler navigation and an intuitive design with the goal of making our website a best-in-class, primary destination for all users: employees, firms and the investing public.” FINRA’s new website was designed to improve functionality and allow for continued enhancements with the use of flexible, open-source technology.
2015 Annual Conference
FINRA’s Annual Conference will be held in Washington, DC on May 27-29, 2015. The conference will include nearly forty sessions designed to help encourage a strong culture of regulatory compliance. The 2015 conference was developed to build regulatory updates to provide compliance officers, legal professionals, branch managers and other with tools to develop and maintain an effective compliance framework.
Attendees can participate in the conference in-person or online. More information regarding speakers, panels, exhibitors, continuing education credits and registration is available on FINRA’s website: 2015 Annual Conference.
Commodity Futures Trading Commission
In a March 31st press release, PR7148-15, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (“CFTC”) Pision of Swap Dealer and Intermediary Oversight (“DSIO”) staff announced that it is providing no-action relief, subject to specified conditions, to provisionally registered swap dealers from compliance with certain CFTC regulations. The relief is for regulations applicable to swaps with legacy special purpose vehicles. Specifically, the no-action provided relief to swap dealers from compliance with CFTC regulations related to business conduct standards with counterparties and swap trading relationship documentation when entering into swaps with certain special purpose vehicles in existence prior to October 10, 2013.
National Futures Association
The National Futures Association released Notice to Members I-15-13 (the “Notice”) on April 8th. The Notice provides Bylaw 1101 guidance for pools which investment management authority has been delegated pursuant to the 2014 CFTC No-Action Letters 14-69 and/or 14-126 and related BASIC display changes. The letters set forth the criteria for seeking streamlined registration no-action relief for commodity pool operators (“CPOs”) that delegate certain of their responsibilities as a CPO to another person who is registered as a CPO. Since this relief is self-executing, NFA is not notified of the delegation and is not able to provide this information on NFA’s BASIC system. As a result, Members conducting Bylaw 1101 due diligence on a particular pool are not always able to confirm through NFA’s BASIC system that the CPO of a particular pool is an NFA Member or exempt from such requirement.
In order to notify NFA that a CPO has been delegated investment management authority over a particular pool and to ensure that NFA’s BASIC system reflects the delegation, CPOs are now required to answer, yes or no, to the following question in NFA’s EasyFile system when filing a pool’s annual financial statement:
• Has the CPO been delegated all investment management authority with respect to this commodity pool, pursuant to CFTC Letter No. 14-69 and/or 14-126?
When a CPO answers “Yes” to the question above, BASIC will automatically reflect the fund as a “Delegated Pool” of the CPO. When conducting a search for a pool in BASIC, the CPO that has answered “Yes” to the question will appear in the “Operator Name” field of the search results. Reviewing the “Exemptions and No Actions” listed in BASIC for a CPO will also allow a Member conducting a search to determine whether the listed CPO has been delegated investment management authority for a particular pool. If the pool is listed under “Delegated Pool”, the Member conducting the search will generally have satisfied its Bylaw 1101 obligations. If the pool is not listed, the Member must conduct additional due diligence to ensure compliance with Bylaw 1101.
At this time, CPOs can only inform the NFA of delegated pools through the annual financial statement filing. As a result, the NFA is actively working on providing CPOs with an alternative method to inform NFA of delegated pools in instances for which an annual financial statement is not required. The NFA will inform Members once an alternative method is available.
For further information about any of the topics covered, please feel free to contact the Ruddy Law Office, PLLC (www.ruddylaw.com) or 202-797-0762.