Washington

The Securities and Exchange Commission unanimously agreed to propose rules for establishing a broad whistleblower program less than a week after an SEC attorney said the agency has obtained numerous queries from muni market participants interested in reporting abuses for awards.

WASHINGTON — Municipal borrowers are much slower than corporations to complete annual audited financial reports, confirming many analysts’ claims that muni issuers’ annual financial disclosures are often stale, a new report shows.

If a state authority issues bonds to pay catastrophe insurance claims, they would not qualify as private-activity bonds because they would be backed with generally applicable taxes and not private payments, the Internal Revenue Service concluded in a recent private-letter ruling.

The Internal Revenue Service is seeking applicants for a tax-exempt bond expert to join its Advisory Committee on Tax-Exempt and Government Entities.

WASHINGTON — The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board has filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission the first batch of proposals to extend to municipal advisers its rules on fair-dealing, disciplinary actions and administrative requirements.

The National Association of Bond Lawyers last week awarded Linda Schakel, a partner at Ballard Spahr in Washington, its Frederick O. Kiel Distinguished Service Award.

The transportation market seems to be stabilizing, Fitch Ratings analysts said at a conference in New York City last week, before the agency publishes its 2011 outlooks for the sector.

SAN ANTONIO — Build America Bond issuers could potentially go years without subsidy payments under the examination process the Internal Revenue Service is currently considering for them, bond attorneys meeting here warned last week.

SAN ANTONIO — Issuers that want to avoid disclosure mishaps — and possible federal enforcement action — should develop and closely follow policies as well as procedures that lay out who must review and sign off on their disclosure documents, Securities and Exchange Commission officials are stressing.

SAN ANTONIO — Treasury Department and Internal Revenue Service officials are trying to figure out how to apply long-standing tax requirements to Build America Bonds that, if interpreted broadly, could have major ramifications for certain BABs held by public pension funds and other governmental entities, possibly leading to their extinguishment.

SAN ANTONIO — “Numerous” municipal market participants have queried the ­Securities and Exchange Commission about bringing muni bond ­abuses to its attention under a new ­congressionally mandated program that provides incentives for whistle-blowers, a top SEC enforcement attorney told bond ­attorneys gathered here Thursday.

SAN ANTONIO — The Securities and Exchange Commission has postponed the municipal securities field hearing it planned to hold in Chicago on Nov. 16.

WASHINGTON — The National Association of Bond ­Lawyers’ new president as of Wednesday night, John ­McNally, appears to be the right man at the right place and the right time, according to the group’s members.

WASHINGTON — California and Florida are the biggest winners of high-speed rail grants, securing $1.7 billion out of a total of $2.5 billion to help close ­funding gaps for ambitious rail projects that have already received large federal grants.

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board on Tuesday filed a proposal with the Securities and Exchange Commission to revise the Municipal Securities Representative Qualification Examination known as the Series 52.

The National Association of Bond ­Lawyers announced Tuesday that it has hired Linda Holtz Wyman as its chief operating officer.

WASHINGTON — Three hours after Standard & Poor’s announced that it had downgraded Assured Guaranty Ltd.’s two insurer platforms to AA-plus from AAA, 84 material-event notices had been filed with the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board’s online EMMA system disclosing 181 bond issues affected by the rating downgrades.

WASHINGTON — The Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago has disclosed that the Internal Revenue Service is examining $600 million of Build America Bonds it issued in August 2009 — the second IRS audit of BABs announced in less than a week.

WASHINGTON — The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board plans to soon file rule changes with the Securities and Exchange Commission that would eliminate the current practice of allowing a dealer-financial adviser to resign as FA and then underwrite the same muni securities transaction.

WASHINGTON — Securities and Exchange Commission proposals to require issuers to provide investors with more information about loans underlying asset-backed securities would apply to municipal bonds and could have far-reaching effects on the muni market, several lawyers said last week.