Bankruptcy

WASHINGTON - The Securities and Exchange Commission has approved rulemaking changes to designate the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board's EMMA system as a free, centralized repository to which issuers must file bond-related secondary-market disclosure documents beginning July 1, and is considering additional rulemaking to boost municipal disclosure standards.

WASHINGTON - A federal court in Indiana has blocked a company from obtaining a $120 million termination payment from the Hoosier Energy Rural Electric Cooperative Inc. in connection with a 2002 sell-in/lease-out, or SILO, transaction, which technically defaulted after the rating of guarantor Ambac Assurance Corp. was downgraded in June.

WASHINGTON - The Securities and Exchange Commission is expected to designate the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board's EMMA system as the sole repository for issuers' secondary market disclosure documents "very soon," SEC chairman Christopher Cox said yesterday. The move came after the commission voted on unrelated proposals to boost transparency and reduce potential conflict of interests at credit rating agencies.

DALLAS - Indictments against Vice President Dick Cheney, former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, and other high-profile political figures have been dismissed, but Willacy County, Tex., district attorney Juan Guerra said he doesn't regret bringing charges against them in connection with inmate abuse in private prisons.

Washington - The Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday named Donald Hoerl as the director of its regional office in Denver, about six months after the 26-year commission veteran became the office's acting director.

SAN FRANCISCO - Copia: The American Center for Wine, Food and the Arts, a Napa, Calif., nonprofit with about $77 million of outstanding tax-exempt bonds, sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Monday evening.

BRADENTON, Fla. - Calling it a "classic pay-to-play scheme," U.S. attorney Alice Martin yesterday outlined a 101-count indictment against Birmingham, Ala., Mayor Larry Langford, his long-time friend and lobbyist Albert LaPierre, and Montgomery bond dealer William Blount.

DALLAS - Arizona Treasurer Dean Martin said on Monday that a fiscal 2009 appropriations act requiring counties and incorporated towns to deposit a total of almost $30 million into the state's general fund violates the Arizona Constitution.

WASHINGTON - Federal regulators yesterday announced $800 billion of new lending and debt purchasing programs designed to free up the housing, auto, credit card and student loan markets, but said they will not cover tax-exempt securities, drawing concerns from the muni market.

CHICAGO - The Summit County Port Authority in Ohio yesterday sued to recover $4.4 million after a borrower stopped making payments on a bond-funded loan earlier this year because it was unhappy with the project financed with the bond proceeds.

WASHINGTON - Municipal market participants yesterday hailed Sunday's dramatic rescue of Citigroup Global Markets Inc. by federal regulators, and said they hope it will stem lingering concerns about the banking giant's broker-dealer arm, the muni market's top-ranked underwriter.

DALLAS - A hearing on the indictments of Vice President Dick Cheney, former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, and other public officials for alleged prisoner abuse and organized crime activities in South Texas erupted into a shouting match after the district attorney and the presiding judge sought to disqualify each other from the case.

DALLAS - Vice President Dick Cheney and former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales are scheduled to be arraigned today in Willacy County on state charges alleging organized criminal activity, but they do not have to appear in person.

New York Insurance Department superintendent Eric Dinallo told members of Congress yesterday that he will "delay indefinitely" the state's effort to regulate part of the credit default swaps market because of the federal government's efforts to regulate them. But he made the remark at a hearing where lawmakers and the agencies seemed far from agreement as to who should primarily regulate the CDS market.

SAN FRANCISCO - Alameda, Calif.'s venture into operating a cable television operation bond financed with tax-exempt debt comes to an end this week - except for ongoing litigation with bondholders angry at taking a substantial haircut, and permanent financial impacts to the city-owned electric utility.

BRADENTON, Fla. - After a year-long hiatus, tax increment financing is again on strong legal footing in Florida now that the state Supreme Court has issued the final word on how the debt must be sold.

BRADENTON, Fla. - In a long-awaited and major victory for proponents of tax increment financing in Florida, the state's high court late yesterday denied a rehearing in the case known as Strand v. Escambia.

The Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday delayed voting on proposed rule changes designed to curb rating agency conflicts of interest, pushing back a vote on them until Dec. 3, when it will consider two additional rating agency-related proposals.

DALLAS - Indictments of Vice President Dick Cheney, former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, and other public officials represent the latest in a series of unusual episodes in an impoverished South Texas county nicknamed Prisonville.

WASHINGTON - The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board has filed a proposal with the Securities and Exchange Commission to require the submission of interest-rate information for auction-rate securities and variable-rate demand obligations to a short-term market transparency system that the board hopes to launch next year.