Joan Quigley

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority highlighted "key risk areas" for muni broker-dealers, warning that its exams will focus on whether incomplete disclosures and financial information from an issuer prevent retail customers from making informed investment decisions.

Market participants slammed a proposal to assess a fee on broker-dealers to help finance the Governmental Accounting Standards Board, differing about whether regulations on dealers should be permitted to pass the fee along to other market participants, including issuers.

In a direct rebuke to industry groups and a push-back against two Republican Securities and Exchange Commission members who engaged in stalling tactics, the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board vigorously defended its proposed guidance on fair-dealing for underwriters.

Three former muni bankers from UBS Financial Services Inc. will go to trial on July 9 on charges of fraud schemes and conspiracies in connection with the bidding of investment and other contracts for municipal bonds from as early as 2001 until 2006.

A federal court in New Jersey has approved a $24.9 million settlement between GE Funding Capital Market Services Inc. and the Securities and Exchange Commission over bid-rigging of municipal bond-related contracts, as well as the amounts of restitution to be distributed to each of the more than 325 state and local issuers that were defrauded.

In a bid to boost muni market transparency, the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board is proposing to post on its online Electronic Municipal Market Access system dollar prices and yields for transactions between dealers.

WASHINGTON — Major changes are in store for the House Financial Services Committee later this year, bringing some uncertainty for municipal securities and other markets.

WASHINGTON — The Securities and Exchange Commission should consider seven alternative methods of compensating rating agencies, including one patterned after the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board, the Government Accountability Office said in a report sent Wednesday to key members of Congress.

WASHINGTON — Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Mary Schapiro told lawmakers Wednesday that the agency is considering whether to exempt all muni issuers, not just states, counties and cities, from federal regulators' joint Volcker rule proposal.

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority has fined five firms a total of roughly $220,000 for violations of municipal securities rules.

Institutional investors generally trade at more favorable prices than individual muni investors in the secondary market, the Government Accountability Office said in a report sent Tuesday to key members of Congress.

A public pension disclosure project spearheaded by a bond attorneys' group is expected to reach a critical milestone when it should become clear whether a voluntary coalition of industry participants will reach consensus on the project or produce separate recommendations.

State and local governments should not allow underwriters to pass through any fees they pay to finance the Governmental Accounting Standards Board, the Government Finance Officers Association warned members Thursday.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission voted 4 to 1 to approve a final rule on business conduct standards for swap dealers designed to protect states and local governments, as well as taxpayers, from fraud in the swaps marketplace.

Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board officials on Tuesday urged issuers to encourage Moody's Investors Service to post rating information on the MSRB's online Electronic Municipal Market Access system.

Putting an end to the most high-profile criminal trial in the muni market since the mid-1990s, two former employees of CDR Financial Products pleaded guilty Monday afternoon to several criminal counts in connection with bid-rigging of investment and derivatives contracts for municipal bond proceeds, according to a source familiar with the matter.

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board's net assets spiked to $36.65 million for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2011, soaring by $6.89 million from the previous year as new technology and transaction fees offset a dip in underwriting assessment fees, according to audited financial statements and an annual report expected to be released Friday.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission will meet on Jan. 11 to consider some final derivatives rules, amid concerns the agency may have bowed to industry pressure and weakened the rules it had proposed to protect unsophisticated governments in swap and other muni-related derivatives transactions.

Opening statements in a federal criminal muni bid-rigging trial have been postponed one week, to Jan. 17 from Jan. 9, prompting some market participants to wonder whether the remaining defendants are seeking to negotiate guilty pleas.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has sued a Georgia attorney and his client for securities fraud over their failure to disclose the client's criminal indictment in bond documents for $2.96 million of industrial redevelopment revenue bonds sold by Raleigh County, W. Va., in 2006 and 2007 that are now in default.