The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority board approved rule proposals at its recent board of governors meeting involving remote office inspections, InvestmentNews reports.
The proposals, among several approved at the board meeting, will be now be submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission. FINRA said the board “approved the submission to the SEC of several proposals related to member firms’ supervision obligations and process-related changes in response to remote and hybrid work environments”.
Under FINRA Rule 3110, member firms are required to maintain a system of supervising the activities of their personnel to ensure compliance with securities laws and regulations. But during the COVID-19 pandemic, a temporary rule was implemented allowing remote supervision to relieve firms of the obligation to perform on-site, in-person inspections. The remote office inspections have now been extended through the end of 2022.
The new proposals on remote and hybrid work environments will be made public once they are filed with the SEC, which must then decide whether to approve them.
Other actions taken by the FINRA board included the approval of proposed amendments to align FINRA rules with the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act of 2021.
In addition, the board approved proposed rule amendments requiring members to publish order routing reports for held orders in OTC equity securities and submit them to FINRA for publication on the FINRA website, and submit Regulation NMS Rule 606(a) order routing reports to FINRA for publication on the FINRA website.
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