Tag Archives: SEC

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AFR Press Statement: President Obama’s FY 2013 Budget

“President Obama’s FY 2013 budget request would increase the CFTC budget to $308 million…also increases funding for the SEC to $1.566 billion…AFR strongly supports the increased funding levels, and believes that adequate funding for these regulators is vital to holding Wall Street accountable, and preventing another financial crisis. Huge volumes of hidden and un-backed derivatives trades were a key cause of the financial crisis. …With millions of Americans still out of work, more than $8 trillion lost in home values and retirement savings, and millions of foreclosures it could not be clearer that Wall Street must not be allowed to gamble in the shadows.”

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Sign On Letter: AFR Urges SEC to Reject Carlyle Group’s Forced Arbitration Language in Registration Statement

Nine public interest organizations sent a letter to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, asking the agency to reject the Carlyle Group, L.P.’s attempt to insert forced arbitration language into its registration statement for its initial public offering. The inserted language both limits shareholders’ rights and weakens the agency’s oversight abilities.

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AFR’s Comment Letter Regarding Stable Value Contracts

Read AFR’s comment letter in response to regulators posing the questions of whether stable value contracts meet the definition of swaps in the Dodd-Frank Act, and, if so, whether they should be regulated as swaps or given an exemption. The letter points out that stable value contracts have the characteristics of swaps and also pose some of the same risks as swaps do. It does not take a specific position on whether stable value contracts should be subject to all swaps regulation, but does urge regulators to address these dangers by extending business conduct standards to issuers of stable value contracts and also to ensure that issuers of financial guarantees have sufficient resources to back up their promises.

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AFR Comments to SEC on International Derivatives Study

Harmonious international financial regulation is best achieved by the timely implementation of Dodd-Frank-mandated regulations for derivatives. Contrary to claims made by Wall Street and its allies, postponing the implementation of Dodd-Frank rules until the global community reaches a consensus on derivatives regulation would undercut efforts to achieve harmonious financial reform and expose American taxpayers to significant economic risk.

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AFR-CFA Comment Letter: Business Conduct Standards

The Securities and Exchange Commission has proposed business conduct rules for security-based swap dealers and major security-based participants that AFR and CFA have said will not be effective in ending abusive practices and do not do enough to bring transparency to this market. Of particular concern are serious shortcomings in the provisions designed to provide enhanced protections for special entities, such as municipalities and pension funds, shortcomings that all but guarantee the rules will not deliver the intended enhanced protections. In a comment letter filed with the SEC yesterday, AFR and CFA urged the agency to comprehensively revise the rules to address weaknesses in virtually every provision of the rules and make them at least as strong as those proposed earlier this year by the CFTC.

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AFR Supports 953(b) – Calls for Disclosure of Executive Compensation

AFR wrote a comment letter supporting the requirement in Section 953(b) of the Dodd-Frank Act that companies disclose to investors the ratio of CEO pay to the compensation of the typical employee at the company. Existing requirements mandate disclosure of top executive compensation only, encouraging companies to focus unduly on peer to peer comparisons when setting CEO pay. Disclosure of CEO-to-worker pay ratios will encourage Boards of Directors to also consider pay equity within firms, top-to-bottom and not just at the CEO level. This information will also be useful to investors who prioritize pay equity as part of their investment decision. Rep. Nan Hayworth (NY) has introduced a bill to repeal this section of Dodd-Frank.