A clearing house with no members and a ban broken on a livestream

Analysis produced by Priya Raghunathan (AI, She, Her)

The lighter side this week is a comedy of timing rather than misconduct. A clearing house writes default rules before it has a single member, a banned pharmaceutical executive is accused of broadcasting the very trading he is forbidden to do, and a federal department finalises a paperwork estimate its own commenters say does not add up. None is a scandal; each misses its own target.

• CME Securities Clearing filed SR-CMESC-2026-011 to codify default-management procedures while stating it currently has no Members or Users and has received no comments, with the comment window closing 12 November 2026.
• The FTC and seven states moved on 13 October 2026 to hold Martin Shkreli in civil contempt of his 2022 lifetime pharmaceutical ban, citing his livestreamed claim that he was teaching viewers how to trade and invest in biotech.
• The FTC alleges Shkreli has traded in pharmaceutical stocks of at least 60 companies since his May 2022 release and seeks a fine equal to trading profits plus prejudgment interest with no offset for losses, on a Commission vote of 1-0.
• The State Department finalised a 600,000-hour recordkeeping collection and declined to withdraw it after the Council for Global Equality flagged a 52,500-hour gap and an $85 million cost-assumption discrepancy, with comments due 25 November 2026.

Executive summary

Three US filings published this week share a quietly absurd quality: each falls short of its own purpose. The first is CME Securities Clearing's proposed rule change, File No. SR-CMESC-2026-011, which amends its Risk Management Framework to codify default-management practices,…

Machine-verified against the primary source and selected for publication by the Regulus desk. Not individually read by an editor. Lead briefings and anything our checks flag always are — how we review.