What is the current state of rule making on this issue?
A. The US Treasury, SEC and CFTC have requested comments and have received 33 separate responses- from law firms, trade associations, standards bodies, financial market utilities, information data base companies, and software and services firms. Nothing has been decided but the Treasury has a legislated deadline to decide by July 15th of this year. The Treasury’s newly created Office of Financial Research (the “Office” or OFR) has the responsibility to pull all the data together. The SEC and the CFTC have said they would likely defer to the Treasury’s time line and decision if, as the OFR has said the industry cannot come up with their own approach acceptable to the OFR.
