Title VII

A man who offered original information about violations of the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) has been granted the largest award for a whistleblower in the history of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Whistleblower Program.

The award is roughly three times larger than the previous award to hold that distinction, paid in March 2016.

Read on to find out more about the multi-million dollar award.

Not in the era of deregulation in the 1980s, the stock bubble of the 1990s, or the mortgage bubble of the early 2000s. Never before have banks made more money than they did in 2016.

The fourth quarter of 2016 brought a lot of positives for the banking industry. There was widespread revenue growth among commercial financial institutions insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC), while community banks outpaced their larger counterparts in both revenue and loan growth.

Read on to learn more about how financial institutions performed in 2016, and what the chief economist with the American Bankers Association expects to see as 2017 wears on. 

Anyone banking on a redefining of what a “fiduciary” is as of April 10 likely will have to wait at least 60 days more while the Department of Labor (DOL) examines its final rule altering the word’s definition under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) and the Internal Revenue Code of 1986.

The DOL proposed a rule to delay the applicability of the new rule for 60 days for review purposes, in accordance with a presidential memorandum directing the department to do so.

Read on to learn more about the rule and what the delay means. 

The CFTC recently issued two new Enforcement Advisories outlining factors the enforcement division will consider when evaluating how much credit individuals and companies deserve for their cooperation during investigations and enforcement actions.

The advisories detail what the enforcement division looks for beyond “ordinary cooperation or mere compliance with the requirements of law.”

Read on to learn how cooperation can benefit you if you happen to find yourself, or your business, under CFTC investigation. 

President Donald Trump signed a presidential memo putting in doubt the future of the Department of Labor’s (DOL) rule intended to address conflicts of interest in retirement advice, also known as the “fiduciary rule,” for further review by the DOL.

Multiple trade organizations weighed in on the president’s decision and their thoughts on the rule. Read on to find out what they had to say.