Financial Regulatory Forum

    By Patrick Rucker
   WASHINGTON, July 6 (Reuters) – The U.S. Treasury Department is warning the financial services industry that it will not back down from its proposal to create a new consumer protection agency, even while lobbyists build a warchest and strategy to defeat the plan.
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    By David Lawder and Jennifer Ablan
   WASHINGTON/NEW YORK, July 2 (Reuters) – The U.S. Treasury will launch its public/private investment fund program to buy up toxic securities with an initial funding of $20 billion from public and private sources, a level scaled back considerably from initial plans, people familiar with the matter said on Thursday.
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    WASHINGTON, July 1 (Reuters) – A U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission lawyer warned  about irregularities at Bernard Madoff’s financial management firm as far back as 2004, The Washington Post reported on Thursday, citing agency documents and sources familiar with the investigation.
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   BERNE, July 1 (Reuters) – UBS <UBSN.VX><UBS.N> can still settle a damaging U.S. tax case even though Washington is pushing ahead with a lawsuit to force the Swiss bank giant to identify offshore clients, the Swiss Finance Minister said.
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   By Steven C. Johnson
   NEW YORK, June 30 (Reuters) – Policy-makers must focus on how to treat systemically important firms that are seen as too big to fail, Thomas Hoenig, president of the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank, said on Tuesday.
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    By Diane Bartz
   WASHINGTON, June 30 (Reuters) – A White House plan to create a new U.S. agency to enforce consumer protection rules for banks and mortgage lenders is a bitter pill for the Federal Trade Commission, which had sought more power to fight financial fraud, but could now see the job taken away altogether.
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   By Chavon Sutton
   NEW YORK, June 30  (Reuters) – Community banks that avoided the excesses of the lending boom and survived the financial crisis without too much trouble are now increasingly worried that they will get penalized by the U.S. government’s regulatory crackdown.
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   By Rachelle Younglai and Jonathan Stempel
   WASHINGTON/NEW YORK, June 30 (Reuters) – U.S. securities regulators are considering changing how companies are required to disclose stock options awarded to executives, people familiar with the Securities and Exchange Commission’s thinking told Reuters on Tuesday.
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