WASHINGTON - The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board, the primary regulator of the $3.7 trillion municipal market, plans to move back to Washington, D.C. after spending more than 15 years in Alexandria, Va.
The board announced Friday that it has signed an agreement to move its offices to the Franklin Square Building at 1300 I Street NW after its current lease expires in 2016.
It is currently based at 1900 Duke St. in Alexandria, the second of two offices in Virginia where it moved from the District of Columbia in 2001 to save money.
"The end of our current lease was an opportunity to consider multiple options for the future location of our organization," said MSRB executive director Lynnette Kelly. "After conducting an extensive search in Virginia and the District, we are extremely pleased to have found a space that better positions us to collaborate with our stakeholders as we continue to fulfill our mission to protect investors and municipal entities."
The MSRB's regulatory responsibilities and office space has expanded dramatically since it left Washington.
In 2001, the last rule in the MSRB's rule book was G-38 on consultants. Now its latest rule is G-48 on sophisticated municipal market professionals, although some rules are missing due to its consolidation activities and the rule numbers don't really represent its growth in and of themselves, because earlier rules, like G-14, have been significantly expanded over the years.
The board's mission expanded to the protection of issuers through the Dodd-Frank Act, which was enacted in 2010. The MSRB also gained regulatory authority over non-dealer and other municipal advisors.
The MSRB's EMMA system has become the repository for issuers' primary and secondary muni market disclosures. In addition, it adopted a near-real time trade reporting rule and since then has been increasing muni trade and price transparency. The board is currently collecting public comments on proposed enhancements to post-trade data that would be disseminated through a new central transparency platform. It recently created a market structure group.
The board's regulatory activities are overseen by the Securities and Exchange Commission. But it coordinates closely with the banking regulators, The Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service. It also appears before Congress and provides education for broker-dealer, issuer and other groups either based or with offices in D.C. The board was created in 1975 and next year will be its 40th anniversary.
