17 CFR Chapter I - COMMODITY FUTURES TRADING COMMISSION

The Securities and Exchange Commission (“Commission” or “SEC”) is adopting amendments to Regulation National Market System (“Regulation NMS”) under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (“Exchange Act”) to require additional disclosures by broker-dealers to customers regarding the handling of their orders. The Commission is adding a new disclosure requirement which requires a broker-dealer, upon request of its customer, to provide specific disclosures related to the routing and execution of the customer's NMS stock orders submitted on a not held basis for the prior six months, subject to two de minimis exceptions. The Commission also is amending the current order routing disclosures that broker-dealers must make publicly available on a quarterly basis to pertain to NMS stock orders submitted on a held basis, and the Commission is making targeted enhancements to these public disclosures. In connection with these new requirements, the Commission is amending Regulation NMS to include certain newly defined and redefined terms that are used in the amendments. The Commission also is amending Regulation NMS to require that the public order execution report be kept publicly available for a period of three years. Finally, the Commission is adopting conforming amendments and updating cross-references as a result of the rule amendments being adopted in this rule.

The Securities and Exchange Commission published a document in the Federal Register of November 5, 2018 adopting revisions to the Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval System (“EDGAR”) Filer Manual and related rules. There was a mistake in the SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION section.

The Commission is issuing a statement regarding certain provisions of its Business Conduct Standards for Security-Based Swap Dealers and Major Security-Based Swap Participants. The statement sets forth the Commission's position, for five years after the compliance date for the security-based swap dealer and major security-based swap participant registration rules, that certain actions with respect to provisions of the Commission's business conduct standards will not provide a basis for a Commission enforcement action.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (the “Commission”) is adopting revisions to the Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval System (“EDGAR”) Filer Manual and related rules. The EDGAR system is scheduled to be upgraded on October 1, 2018.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (“Commission”) is proposing amendments to rules for nationally recognized statistical rating organizations (“NRSROs”) under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (“Exchange Act”). The amendments would provide an exemption from a rule for NRSROs with respect to credit ratings if the issuer of the security or money market instrument referred to in the rule is not a U.S. person, and the NRSRO has a reasonable basis to conclude that all offers and sales of such security or money market instrument by any issuer, sponsor, or underwriter linked to such security or money market instrument will occur outside the United States. In addition, the amendments would make conforming changes to similar exemptions in two other Exchange Act rules. The Commission is requesting comment on the proposed rule amendments.

We are adopting amendments to certain of our disclosure requirements that have become redundant, duplicative, overlapping, outdated, or superseded, in light of other Commission disclosure requirements, U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (“U.S. GAAP”), or changes in the information environment. We are also referring certain Commission disclosure requirements that overlap with, but require information incremental to, U.S. GAAP to the Financial Accounting Standards Board (“FASB”) for potential incorporation into U.S. GAAP. The amendments are intended to facilitate the disclosure of information to investors and simplify compliance without significantly altering the total mix of information provided to investors. These amendments are part of an initiative by the Division of Corporation Finance to review disclosure requirements applicable to issuers to consider ways to improve the requirements for the benefit of investors and issuers. We are also adopting these amendments as part of our efforts to implement title LXXII of the Fixing America's Surface Transportation Act.

We are proposing amendments to the financial disclosure requirements for guarantors and issuers of guaranteed securities registered or being registered, and issuers' affiliates whose securities collateralize securities registered or being registered in Regulation S-X to improve those requirements for both investors and registrants. The proposed changes are intended to provide investors with material information given the specific facts and circumstances, make the disclosures easier to understand, and reduce the costs and burdens to registrants. In addition, by reducing the costs and burdens of compliance, issuers may be encouraged to offer guaranteed or collateralized securities on a registered basis, thereby affording investors protection they may not be provided in offerings conducted on an unregistered basis. Finally, by making it less burdensome and less costly for issuers to include guarantees or pledges of affiliate securities as collateral when they structure debt offerings, the proposed revisions may increase the number of registered offerings that include these credit enhancements, which could result in a lower cost of capital and an increased level of investor protection.

The Commission is proposing an amendment to the exemption provisions in the broker-dealer annual reporting rule under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (“Exchange Act”). The amendment would provide that a broker-dealer is not required to engage an independent public accountant to certify the broker-dealer's annual reports if, among other things, the securities business of the broker-dealer has been limited to acting as broker (agent) for a single issuer in soliciting subscriptions for securities of that issuer.

We are adopting interim final temporary rules for issuers subject to reporting obligations pursuant to Regulation Crowdfunding and Regulation A in order to address the needs of companies directly or indirectly affected by Hurricane Florence. The temporary rules extend the filing deadlines for specified reports and forms due pursuant to Regulation Crowdfunding and Regulation A for certain issuers.

On July 17, 2018, the Agencies published in the Federal Register a notice of proposed rulemaking (proposal) that would amend the regulations implementing section 13 of the Bank Holding Company Act. Section 13 contains certain restrictions on the ability of a banking entity and nonbank financial company supervised by the Board to engage in proprietary trading and have certain interests in, or relationships with, a hedge fund or private equity fund. The proposed amendments are intended to provide banking entities with clarity about what activities are prohibited and to improve supervision and implementation of section 13. In response to requests from commenters regarding issues addressed in the proposal, the public comment period has been extended for 30 days until October 17, 2018. This action will allow interested persons additional time to analyze the proposal and prepare their comments.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (Commission or CFTC) is proposing rule amendments pursuant to its authority under section 4(c) of the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) to exempt from the clearing requirement set forth in section 2(h)(1) of the CEA certain swaps entered into by certain bank holding companies, savings and loan holding companies, and community development financial institutions.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (“Commission” or “CFTC”) is amending its regulations regarding certain duties of chief compliance officers (“CCOs”) of swap dealers (“SDs”), major swap participants (“MSPs”), and futures commission merchants (“FCMs”) (collectively, “Registrants”); and certain requirements for preparing, certifying, and furnishing to the Commission an annual report containing an assessment of the Registrant's compliance activities.

We are adopting amendments to require the use of the Inline eXtensible Business Reporting Language (“XBRL”) format for the submission of operating company financial statement information and fund risk/return summary information. We also are adopting the elimination of the 15 business day XBRL filing period for fund risk/return summaries. The amendments are intended to improve the data's usefulness, timeliness, and quality, benefiting investors, other market participants, and other data users and to decrease, over time, the cost of preparing the data for submission to the Commission. The amendments will also eliminate the requirement for operating companies and funds to post “Interactive Data Files” ( i.e., machine-readable computer code that presents information in XBRL format) on their websites and terminate the Commission's voluntary program for the submission of financial statement information interactive data that is currently available only to investment companies and certain other entities.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (Commission) is proposing amendments to its regulations to establish a regulatory framework within which the Commission may exempt a clearing organization that is organized outside of the United States (hereinafter referred to as “non-U.S. clearing organization”) from registration as a derivatives clearing organization (DCO) in connection with the clearing organization's clearing of swaps. In addition, the Commission is proposing certain amendments to its delegation provisions in its regulations.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is adopting amendments to regulatory requirements in Regulation ATS under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (“Exchange Act”) applicable to alternative trading systems (“ATSs”) that trade National Market System (“NMS”) stocks (hereinafter referred to as “NMS Stock ATSs”), including so called “dark pools.” First, we are adopting new Form ATS-N, which will require NMS Stock ATSs to disclose information about their manner of operations, the broker-dealer that operates the ATS (“broker-dealer operator”), and the ATS-related activities of the broker-dealer operator and its affiliates. Second, as amended, the regulations will require public posting of certain Form ATS-N filings on the Commission's website, which will be accomplished through the Commission's Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval system (“EDGAR”) and require each NMS Stock ATS that has a website to post on its website a direct URL hyperlink to the Commission's website. Third, the amendments that we are adopting today provide a process for the Commission to review Form ATS-N filings and, after notice and opportunity for hearing, declare an NMS Stock ATS's Form ATS-N ineffective. Fourth, the regulations, as amended, will require all ATSs subject to the regulations to place in writing its safeguards and procedures to protect subscribers' confidential trading information. We are also adopting conforming amendments.