Joan Quigley

WASHINGTON — State and local governments will face higher debt-issuance costs if regulators require money market funds to move to floating net-asset values, issuer groups warned Thursday.

WASHINGTON - Taxpayers will have to contribute an average of $1,398 per household per year over the next 30 years, either through tax hikes or reduced public services, to fulfill public-sector pension obligations, according to a study released Tuesday.

WASHINGTON - State and local governments should develop standards to bolster public pension disclosure or federal regulators may mandate improvements for them, a Securities and Exchange Commission official warned Tuesday.

WASHINGTON — Budget cuts proposed by Republicans would foster uncertainty in the derivatives market but would not interfere with new rulemaking, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission's chairman warned members of a Senate panel Wednesday.

WASHINGTON — Martha Mahan Haines, 59, the Securities and Exchange Commission's muni chief, will retire at the end of June after 12 years in the SEC's municipal securities office.

President Obama's two nominees to the Securities and Exchange Commission navigated their confirmation hearing before the Senate Banking Committee on Tuesday only to have David Vitter hold up their nominations.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has proposed to delay some rules for the swaps market until as late as Dec. 31, 2011.

WASHINGTON - Market participants are urging the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to clarify, in its proposed business-conduct standards for swap dealers, that dealers should not be required to put a state or local government issuer's interests ahead of their own.

WASHINGTON — The Bond Dealers of America unveiled guidelines Wednesday designed to help dealers comply with suitability, disclosure and pricing rules when dealing with retail investors.

WASHINGTON Three former officials from CDR Financial Products Inc. are urging a federal judge to dismiss the Justice Department’s charges against them, arguing prosecutors should not proceed to trial on a fraud theory the Supreme Court rejected last year.

WASHINGTON — The chairman of the Governmental Accounting Standards Board plunged into the debate over municipal market disclosure Thursday, urging state and local governments to generate more timely financial reports.

Issuers and independent financial advisers heralded the Securities and Exchange Commission’s endorsement of a proposed rule that would bar dealer-financial advisers from acting as an underwriter and a muni adviser on the same transaction.

WASHINGTON — Financial reporting delays by state and local governments significantly compromise the usefulness of the information to users, including financial analysts, according to a recent report by the Governmental Accounting Standards Board.

Broker-dealers face increasing scrutiny and may be required in some cases to put the interests of municipal issuers ahead of their own, regulatory officials said Wednesday.

SAN ANTONIO — State and local governments are facing more scrutiny from municipal market participants, including rating agencies and underwriters, market experts warned this week.

SAN ANTONIO — State and local governments should boost their continuing disclosure voluntarily or federal regulators may mandate improvements for them, a state finance director warned Saturday.

WASHINGTON — A muni market research group is urging Congress to require the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board to tag issuers that fail to comply with their secondary-market disclosure agreements and then force dealers to take the flagged muni securities into account when trading.

WASHINGTON — The Securities and Exchange Commission approved proposed rules Wednesday that would bolster the transparency of credit ratings and beef up oversight of rating agencies.

WASHINGTON — Among some issuers of municipal bonds, the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Elisse Walter is known for one speech, and one speech only.

WASHINGTON — Investors will flee money-market funds if regulators require the funds to move to floating net-asset values, a market expert warned Monday.