Jack Casey

The Securities and Exchange Commission’s whistleblower office fielded more allegations involving municipal securities and public pensions in fiscal year 2016 than ever before, according to a report the office sent to Congress about recent whistleblower activity.

The National Federation of Municipal Analysts has announced the 2016 winner of its annual Peter Fugiel Scholarship and acknowledged two honorable mentions.

Securities and Exchange Commission chair Mary Jo White on Tuesday said the numerous violations the commission's municipal continuing disclosure enforcement initiative uncovered may mean the SEC needs direct regulatory authority over issuers.

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board wants to amend its proposal to require dealers to disclose their markups and markdowns in certain transactions by lengthening its implementation timeline and clarifying provisions that market participants have criticized.

Securities and Exchange Commission chair Mary Jo White announced today that she will leave her position at the end of the Obama administration.

As government leaders both nationally and in Puerto Rico enter transition periods after last week’s elections, Treasury is reminding officials both old and new to give a high priority to assistance for the commonwealth.

Municipal market groups and other market participants are recommending that the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board focus its future strategic priorities on improving its EMMA system and transparency as well as cost-benefit analyses of its rulemaking.

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board's proposal to require dealers to disclose their markups and markdowns in certain transactions is long overdue and will greatly benefit retail investors, said the Securities and Exchange Commission's Investor Advocate.

Scottrade has agreed to pay $150,000 to settle Financial Industry Regulatory Authority charges that it did not identify bonds as callable in approximately 5,000 municipal securities transactions.

The par amount of municipal trades continued to grow in the third quarter of 2016, reaching a three-year high and beating the total from the third quarter a year ago by more than 50%, according to recently released Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board statistics.

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board wants to amend several of its rules to both create a municipal advisor client complaint process as well as update and streamline its current requirements related to dealer customer complaints.

A New York audit firm and one of its senior partners have agreed to pay a combined $555,000 and take a number of corrective actions to settle Securities and Exchange Commission charges that they issued fraudulent audit reports in connection with municipal bond offerings from the town of Ramapo, N.Y.

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board plans to amend its proposal that would require dealers to disclose their markups and markdowns in principal trades with retail customers.

The Securities and Exchange Commission will continue to go after investment bankers and issuer officials to try to debunk the notion that enforcement is just another “cost of doing business,” an SEC official said here on Friday.

Underwriters should walk away from municipal securities transactions when they discover the issuer has failed to disclose key information, dealer officials said here, citing their own experiences as examples.

A federal court judge has approved Miami's $1 million settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission over charges the city acted fraudulently in taking steps to hide its deteriorating financial condition from bondholders.

Financial Industry Regulatory Authority examiners are probing firms’ involvement with bank loans and other alternative financings in the municipal market, a FINRA official said at an industry seminar here.

Underwriters’ counsel should be more proactive in keeping up to date with regulators’ concerns and then communicating those to their underwriter clients, a dealer official said here.

While the Securities and Exchange Commission remains silent on whether there will be more settlements under its continuing disclosure enforcement initiative, an SEC official said any party that voluntarily submitted potential violations will be told whether the commission plans to take action against them.

Dealer groups are concerned that a proposed Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board standalone minimum denomination rule would hurt liquidity and adversely affect participants in the market.