Regulation

Rep. Randy Neugebauer, R-Texas, is gearing up to play a leading role on the House Financial Services Committee next year — to ensure that regulators do not overstep their bounds.

Sponsors would have to disclose a fund’s asset allocation and how that changes over time.

Four years after it began charging risk-based premiums, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. is set to revamp them again for the largest institutions.

The Securities and Exchange Commission, Federal Bureau of Investigation and the office of Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara are readying insider-trading charges against numerous financial professionals.

A principal aim of the impending cost basis reporting law is to enable the IRS to capture lost tax revenues due to inaccurate or underreported filings. Brokers and custodians are now scrambling to ensure their accounting systems will be compliant with the regulations, expected to take effect Jan. 1, 2011. However, the law will impact firms in other ways they may not yet realize.

Investigation might redefine insider trading.

In an era of low interest rates, weak loan demand and unprecedented efforts by the Federal Reserve Board to pump liquidity into the economy, the demand for Federal Home Loan Bank advances has plummeted to a 10-year low, raising questions about the system's future as the government weighs a redesign of the housing finance sector.

The Build America Bond program is likely to be extended for one year at something less than its current 35% federal interest cost subsidy level, due to the dynamics shaping up around the tax-cut extension Congress will consider when it returns after Thanksgiving.

Janus said Tuesday it has been subpoenaed in the federal investigation into insider trading by “executive networks,” hedge funds and mutual funds. A day earlier, the FBI raided the offices of three hedge funds in Connecticut and Massachusetts.

Frank Keating pledged Tuesday to take a bipartisan approach as the next head of the American Bankers Association, dismissed concerns about a past scandal from his former career as Oklahoma governor as "unfair" and touted his experience with issues relevant to mortgage securitization and the Bank Secrecy Act.