Enforcement

The mayor of Harvey, Ill. has agreed to pay $10,000 and to never participate in a municipal bond offering again in order to settle charges with the Securities and Exchange Commission that he helped the city mislead bond investors by diverting proceeds from projects for which they were intended.

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority has filed a complaint against Phoenix-based Lawson Financial Corp. and the firm's president and chief executive officer, charging them with securities fraud in connection with the sale of millions of dollars of municipal revenue bonds to customers.

The trustee firm in many recent troubled bond deals assembled by accused fraudster Christopher Brogdon is taking a harder line against the former employee it blames for its involvement in the mess.

Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith, a subsidiary of Bank of America, was ordered to pay $422,708 in fines and restitution by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority for charging customers excessive markups and markdowns on municipal securities.

Allegations of securities violations against Calvin Grigsby should be dismissed, an Illinois hearing officer recommended in a case that stemmed from his firm Grigsby & Associates advising a state agency to invest in a bank that later failed.

Miami’s “dramatically improving and diverse economy” was a driving force that led Moody's Investors Service to upgrade the city’s general obligation bonds to Aa3 from A1, despite pending SEC and pension suits.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is charging a father, his son, and five of their associates with defrauding investors in Native American tribal bonds to pay for, among other things, their luxury expenses and legal costs associated with prior fraud charges.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is using Peter Cannava, a banker involved in an ill-fated private placement for a startup video game company, as a scapegoat and has no basis for charging him with defrauding investors, his lawyers claimed this week.

A Chicago-based investment advisor faces jail time after pocketing more than $4 million from the sale of phony Chicago-backed securities that she described as "Chicago Anticipatory Notes."

A regulatory official and market participants sparred over the merits of the Securities and Exchange Commission's voluntary continuing disclosure enforcement initiative during a panel here on Wednesday while acknowledging the need to improve municipal disclosure.