The passage of the STOCK Act, which will explicitly ban insider trading by members of Congress, seems imminent. A Senate bill finally passed last week and yesterday the House passed its own version. Now the Senate and House bills will be sent on to a joint House-Senate conference committee charged with reconciling the two versions of the Act.

Simultaneously, The Washington Post reported yesterday, an independent investigative agency in Washington, DC called the Office of Congressional Ethics has launched an investigation that shows that the issue of insider trading by Congress may not be merely academic. The OCE is reportedly investigating Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.), the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, over possible violations of insider trading laws. Certain trades by Bachus were the subject of a 60 Minutes report in November 2011 that helped light a fire under the long-languishing STOCK Act. According to the Post, OCE investigators have notified Bachus "that they have found probable cause to believe insider-trading violations have occurred."

The SEC is now on record as saying that while the application of the insider trading laws to a member of Congress "is without direct precedent and may present some unique issues," there "is no reason why trading by Members of Congress or their staff members would be considered 'exempt' from the federal securities laws." The Post reports that the OCE's probe into Bachus' trades is the first of its kind involving a member of Congress.