On November 24th, the Treasury Department's Office of Financial Research published for comment a statement of policy regarding its preference to adopt through rulemaking a universal standard for identifying parties to financial contracts that is established and implemented by private industry and other relevant stakeholders through a consensus process. The Office seeks comment on this statement of policy, including but not limited to the desired characteristics for a Legal Entity Identifier and the institutional arrangements for issuing and maintaining identifiers and associated reference data. Comments should be submitted on or before January 31, 2011. Statement on Legal Entity Identification for Financial Contracts.