Pursuant to powers granted to it by Section 120 of the Dodd-Frank Act, on November 13, 2012, the Financial Stability Oversight Council (“FSOC”) approved proposed recommendations for the structural reform of money market mutual funds (“MMFs”).
On October 19, 2012, Spain’s financial regulator the CNMV announced that it would extend its ban on short selling until October 31 and has also submitted a proposal to the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) to impose a further three month ban, effective November 1, 2012.
Increased capital requirements are squeezing as many as 25% of financial firms out of certain business lines, according to the fourth annual survey by the Professional Risk Managers’ Association (PRMIA), which was co-sponsored by SunGard. The survey finds, among other things, that the introduction of central clearing is expected to result in lower margins, increased collateral requirements, and generally increase the cost of doing business in OTC derivatives.
On October 17, 2012, the SEC published its long awaited proposals for new rules governing “security-based swaps.” Recognizing the considerable concern over the cross-border effect of this proposed new regime for OTC derivatives, the Commission chose to set those worries aside to be addressed more fully in a forthcoming separate release. They explain that this approach will allow market participants, foreign regulators, and others an opportunity to weigh in on the issues raised by the proposed OTC Derivatives framework as a whole.
Two new studies examine the influence proxy advisory services like ISS and Glass-Lewis have on the outcomes of proposals made to shareholders in firms’ annual proxies, particularly say-on-pay votes, which became mandatory for most public companies in 2011.
In an October 14, 2012 address in Tokyo, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke outlined the Fed’s near term economic outlook, and discussed in an international context the basic rationale underlying the Federal Reserve’s recent policy decisions. According to Bernanke, the outlook is for the economic recovery to proceed at a moderate pace in coming quarters, with the unemployment rate declining only gradually and inflation running less than 2%.
“Both the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets and the Financial Stability Oversight Council have consistently called for the SEC to pursue additional reforms to address structural vulnerabilities in [money market funds], including unanimous recommendations in the [FSOC’s] 2011 and 2012 annual reports. The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act gives the Council both the responsibility and the authority to take action to address risks to financial stability if an agency fails to do so. (emphasis added) Accordingly, I would like the [FSOC] to consider taking a series of steps to address this challenge.”
“[G]lobal interconnections within the swap markets require cross-border regulatory cooperation and harmonization, as no one national regulator is equipped with the resources necessary to regulate comprehensively every participant in its local market nor every market in which its local institutions participate. At the same time, these global interconnections increase the potential for conflicting national implementation of regulatory reform to have adverse effects on the markets and market participants, especially if applied extraterritorially.”
In light of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s inability to bring money market fund reforms to a vote, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has announced that the Financial Stability Oversight Council will take the matter in hand. Specifically, Geithner announced in a September 27, 2012 letter that the FSOC will propose its own set of options for further money fund reform, which will be open for public comment.
With 1,304 funds and €215 billion assets under management, Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) listed in Europe are a major element of the European fund management industry. However, some feel that European ETFs are hindered by a lack of liquidity as compared to their counterparts in the US ETF market, and that European ETFs could be even more robust if they followed the US model of employing greater levels of securities finance and collateral management.