Bankruptcy

WASHINGTON — Market participants are pushing back against attempts by Standard & Poor’s to rate municipal bond deals on the condition that the issuer agrees to accept both greater liability if the rating turns out to be faulty and an ongoing obligation to inform it of any material change to any information provided to the agency.

ALAMEDA, Calif. — A civil jury in Sacramento rejected professional negligence claims last week against attorneys and a pension consultant involved in setting up a controversial pension system for Sacramento City Unified School District administrators.

Pittsburgh’s City Council gave preliminary approval Wednesday to a $220 million borrowing plan for the Pittsburgh Parking Authority that would help keep the city’s pension system out of state control.

Housing developer AvalonBay Communities Inc. and partners will pay $2.2 million to settle a two-year-old discrimination case brought by the U.S. Justice Department regarding a bond-financed multifamily project in New York City.

WASHINGTON — As the majority-public Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board formally meets for the first time Wednesday through the end of the week, market participants are questioning whether some of its public representatives are really independent from regulated dealers and advisers.

The hassles associated with Chapter 9 municipal bankruptcies will suppress the number of filings, despite municipal revenues still being well below pre-recession levels, ­experts say.

BRADENTON, Fla. — The Securities and Exchange Commission has approved a distribution plan allowing ­Jefferson County, Ala., to receive a $25 million disgorgement and civil penalty that ­JPMorgan paid into a “fair” fund to compensate harmed investors and issuers.

CHICAGO — Detroit’s fiscal problems could act as a contagion for local governments across Michigan and the state itself, driving up borrowing costs and restricting access to credit, warns a new report by the Legislature’s independent Senate Fiscal Agency.

A Rhode Island judge Monday upheld the constitutionality of the law allowing the state to appoint a receiver to take over the finances of troubled Central Falls.

WASHINGTON — Four former Financial Industry Regulatory Authority officials who left the agency in 2008 each received between $2.74 million and $4.43 million in reportable compensation and benefits that year, according to the latest form the nonprofit self-regulator filed with the Internal Revenue Service.

ALAMEDA, Calif. — The Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating bonds issued by the city of Bell.

Moody’s Investors Service said the proposed rehabilitation plan to deal with Ambac Assurance Corp.’s segregated account of high-risk insured assets is a credit positive and, if confirmed by the courts, will put the Wisconsin-domiciled bond insurer “one step closer to an orderly run-off.”

CHICAGO — The St. Paul Port Authority and lawyers for a group of investors who hold some of its 876 Fund economic development bonds will return to court Nov. 1 as litigation over the fate of $51 million of defaulted outstanding debt moves towards a trial date.

In the quarter when the Securities and Exchange Commission for the first time charged a state with securities fraud for failing to make certain disclosures to investors, data from Thomson Reuters shows that most changes in rankings of law firms occurred among disclosure counsel.

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority has fined four firms a total of $62,000 for errors in the reporting of municipal securities transactions, including $25,000 against Goldman, Sachs & Co., the self-regulator announced in monthly disciplinary decisions released Friday.

The Harrisburg City Council is seeking a legal consultant that would offer advice to officials on a potential bankruptcy filing or entering into Pennsylvania’s distressed communities program, known as Act 47.

The Pittsburgh City Council is poised next week to reject a $451.6 million offer for its parking system that would, if completed, raise revenue needed to ward off a state takeover of the city’s pension system, which is only 30% funded.

Most municipal analysts bristle at the claim that California will “become the next Greece.”

ALAMEDA, Calif. — The California attorney general’s office plans to seek a court order placing the troubled city of Bell under some sort of receivership or monitoring.

WASHINGTON — As the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board begins to regulate an anxious and skeptical non-dealer advisory community, its new chairman, Michael Bartolotta of Dallas-based First Southwest Co., the largest dealer-advisory firm in the nation, is stressing that the MSRB’s rules will be fair to all regulated market participants.