MSRB

Malachi Financial Products Inc. and its principal were charged with violating their fiduciary duty to a city in Mississippi, overcharging the city, and failing to disclose payments received from the underwriter.

After a bumpy but overall successful launch of markup disclosure, the muni industry looks ahead to regulatory scrutiny and finding ways to use the new data.

Deutsche Bank Securities and Central States Capital Markets agreed to settle with FINRA for a combined $80,000.

The new guidance is just the first of a planned three-part release, which will later cover social media use and the rule's content standards.

Municipal advisors were hoping for something more robust than the comments the MSRB incorporated into its latest "compliance resource."

The number of muni market dealers has fallen off even as trading activity remained stable, an MSRB report finds.

There was friction about the integrity of the muni market during a panel discussion Thursday, but the committee agreed to move along with some disclosure recommendations.

The Government Finance Officers Association said Tuesday it generally supports most of the recommendations an SEC panel plans to discuss in Atlanta later this week.

The SEC's Investor Advisory Committee's vice chairman is Elisse Walter, the former chairman and commissioner of the SEC who was most responsible for the commission's 2012 Report on the Municipal Securities Markets that suggested some of these muni reforms.

The muni industry's self regulator said issuers have found underwriters' disclosure letters to be too long, filled with boilerplate, and duplicative.

The past 10 years have seen major changes to the market, but analysts aren't sure they've been effective in preparing it for the next test.

The MSRB's controversial commentary about selective disclosure got some support from a top SEC official on Wednesday.

The 13-year-old Real-Time Transaction Reporting System has undergone a three-year re-engineering process.

Early returns indicate there have been some problems but firms seem to be working through them in complying with the new markup rules, regulators and industry officials said Tuesday.

The proposal would establish a standalone rule governing transactions in discretionary accounts, something the board hasn't had in more than 30 years.

FINRA found that Gates Capital and three of its employees breached several MSRB rules, some related to role-switching from advisor to underwriter on the same transaction.

A muni advisor and his firm defrauded a school district in south Texas, lying to it to gain business and failing to disclose a conflict of interest.

The MSRB said its newly-approved rules are an important part of its regulatory efforts, while groups representing dealers and MAs are say they are confusing and need clarification.

Issuers and the MSRB are mostly on the same page about primary offering practices that may warrant scrutiny, but some members of the GFOA's debt committee are concerned about "regulatory creep."

The MSRB said its proposals should be approved, despite objections from dealers and municipal advisors.