Jack Casey

The National Federation of Municipal Analysts’ final best practices on charter school disclosures suggests schools can use links to websites for certain information.

Amie Riggle Berlin, the SEC’s lawyer who handled its case against Miami and Michael Boudreaux, explained the important aspects of a reliance on professionals defense and the need for issuers to stay truthful in their offering documents during a conference panel.

Market participants gathered at The Bond Buyer and Bond Dealers of America’s National Municipal Bond Summit expressed concerns with the broad nature of the SEC’s proposal to add two material events to Rule 15c2-12 that would also emphasize the need to make materiality determinations.

The SEC wants a Puerto Rico federal court to agree that Jose Ramirez, a former UBS Puerto Rico employee, engaged in a scheme to defraud investors in closed-end funds with large investments in Puerto Rico bonds.

The House Natural Resources Committee, which played a key role in creating PROMESA, will hold a hearing in one of its subcommittees on March 22 to discuss PREPA’s restructuring support agreement.

Five firms have agreed to pay a total of nearly $920,000 to settle separate rule violations related to municipal securities.

The House Financial Services Committee and Senate Banking Committee both approved companion bills that would end a legal loophole that lawmakers allege allowed broker-dealers to defraud Puerto Rico investors have received committee approval and are now pending before the House and Senate.

Lawyers gathered at NABL’s Tax and Securities Law Institute on Friday said a carve out in the MSRB’s recent clarification on requiring CUSIPs for private placements would be beneficial to the market.

Lawyers at NABL’s TSLI conference on Thursday said that while the SEC’s proposed amendments to its list of material events are well-meaning, they would be burdensome for issuers dealing with the numerous new disclosure obligations.

The Senate Banking Committee’s scheduled hearing on Jay Clayton’s nomination is expected to include some questions from Democrats on Clayton’s ties to Wall Street and ability to protect investors.

A guilty plea from Aaron Troodler, the former executive director of the Ramapo Local Development Corp., for criminal securities fraud means he could face a maximum of 25 years in prison.

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board has released criteria that will generally require the top five firms submitting to certain of the self-regulator’s systems to participate in Securities and Exchange Commission-mandated business continuity and disaster recovery plan testing.

Marrien Neilson, the former BOK Financial employee the SEC said was responsible for concealing some of Christopher Brogdon's securities fraud, agreed to a first of a kind ban on her acting as an indenture trustee or dissemination agent for municipal bonds as well as a $55,000 payment to settle the charges.

Dealers are criticizing a proposed standalone minimum denomination rule from the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board, saying it would hamper liquidity and hurt investors by limiting the liquidity of below-minimum denomination positions in municipal securities.

The Securities and Exchange Commission will weigh two amendments to required material event notices under its Rule 15c2-12 during a meeting on March 1 that may include discussion of adding bank loans and private placements to the 14-item event list.

Six holders of municipal revenue bonds underwritten by Christopher Brogdon are trying to recover as much as $1 million in lost capital as well as other expenses from bond trustee BOK Financial Securities.

Morgan Stanley will pay a $115,000 fine and $55,284 in restitution after FINRA found the firm engaged in muni transactions where it charged prices that were not fair or reasonable.

Christopher Morrill, Roanoke, Va.’s city manager, will replace Jeff Esser in May as GFOA executive director as municipal issuers face "challenging times."

Julie Egan, the new chair of the National Federation of Municipal Analysts, wants to increase NFMA’s visibility in the municipal market in 2017 and push regulators for more improvements to muni disclosure.

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board is asking for comments both on draft amendments to its current dealer advertising rule that would harmonize it with other regulators’ rules as well as on a proposed rule that would extend many of those dealer provisions to municipal advisors.