* The Malaysian government filed criminal charges against 17 current and former Goldman Sachs employees for their alleged involvement in the 1Malaysia Development Bhd., or 1MDB, scandal, Bloomberg News reports. Malaysian officials plan to seek custodial sentences and criminal fines against the indicted Goldman executives, which include Vice Chairman Richard Gnodde and John Evans, who is now president of Alibaba Group Holding.
* Ancora Advisors, which owns a 5.52% stake in Middlefield Banc, is pressuring the latter to put itself up for sale. Ancora expressed disappointment at the stock price underperforming despite the bank's quarterly earnings beating analysts' estimates 70% of the time over the last 10 quarters.
* The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is proposing to modernize the description of business, legal proceedings, and risk factor disclosures that registrants are required to make under Regulation S-K. The regulator seeks to simplify and eliminate unnecessary costs and burdens to filing companies, SEC Chairman Jay Clayton said.
* The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority is contemplating on reducing the review requirements for small brokers with clean disciplinary records, InvestmentNews reports, citing FINRA small-firm representative Robert Muh. The agency may widen the examination intervals for smaller firms to four years instead of being examined every two or three years, Muh said.
* Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., wrote to Capital One CEO Richard Fairbank asking why the bank was unable to detect the data breach after almost four months from the date it happened, American Banker reports. Warren is seeking detailed information on the matter, including a timeline of the breach and certain decisions the bank made before and after the incident.
* Citigroup is looking at hiring senior coverage bankers amid the cuts it is making in its trading division workforce, Bloomberg News reports. The move is part of a plan to improve the company's rank in advising on tech deals and IPOs.
* Amir Zaidi, director of Commodity Futures Trading Commission's Division of Market Oversight, will be leaving his role within weeks, Bloomberg Law reports, citing multiple sources. Vincent McGonagle, CFTC's deputy director of Enforcement, will reportedly be appointed acting director for Zaidi's division.
* MBIA subsidiaries National Public Finance Guarantee and MBIA Insurance sued UBS Financial Services, UBS Securities, Citigroup Global Markets, Goldman Sachs & Co., J.P. Morgan Securities, Morgan Stanley & Co., Merrill Lynch Pierce Fenner & Smith, RBC Capital Markets and Santander Securities for their alleged inequitable conduct in Puerto Rico's municipal market.
* The National Association of Insurance Commissioners elected at its summer meeting to continue deferring discussion around adopting some form of the expected credit loss standard for statutory accounting.
* Third Point Reinsurance CEO Daniel Malloy said the company is on track to achieve underwriting profitability later this year, subject to property catastrophe events.
* Argo Group International Holdings' board will propose amendments to the company's bylaws at the 2020 annual general meeting. The board plans to suggest decreasing its maximum size to 11 from 13, as well as starting its phased declassification process.
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