Academic

Agencies that want to formalize their cooperation with one another don't conclude treaties, and they don't pass regs.  They sign Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs).  MOUs don't require all that pesky process and reflect an increasingly interconnected regulatory enterprise.  What's more, the SEC likes them.  It has concluded MOUs with many foreign security regulators, and now the agency is on a domestic tear.  It just did a deal with the Fed.  Not the fanciest deal, to be sure:

Under the MOU between the two agencies, the SEC and the Board would share information and cooperate across a number of important areas of common interest including anti-money laundering, bank brokerage activities under the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, clearance and settlement in the banking and securities industries, and the regulation of transfer agents. The MOU specifically covers bank holding companies and so-called Consolidated Supervised Entities that own securities firms. It builds on and formalizes the long-standing cooperative arrangements between the SEC and the Board, as well as the more recent cooperation on matters including banking and investment banking capital and liquidity following the Board's emergency opening of credit facilities to primary dealers.

With the President's Working Group coordinating policy, with Paulson's blueprint proposing to merge regulatory responsibilities, and with these MOUs, it is fair to say that there's a new mood about coordination afoot in Washington.  How much of a mood?  Consider this:

The SEC recently entered into a similar MOU with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. An agreement between the SEC and the Department of Labor is anticipated later this summer.