Law and legal issues

The Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday unanimously agreed to propose amendments to its Rule 2a-7 that would remove all credit rating references from the rule, which requires money market funds to invest in high-quality and very liquid short-term securities.

CHICAGO — Bondholders owed more than $50 million by an Indiana hospital in receivership would receive a mere $3 million or less under a proposed sale of the facility’s most valuable assets.

ALAMEDA, Calif. — Boise County, Idaho, filed for Chapter 9 bankruptcy Tuesday after losing an expensive court case.

As municipalities confront unprecedented budget shortfalls in the aftermath of the Great Recession, some analysts are questioning whether the history of prioritizing bondholders during bankruptcy proceedings will be of much help in gauging future outcomes.

BRADENTON, Fla. — Two Florida senators, a Republican and a Democrat, filed a 281-page petition Tuesday with the state Supreme Court seeking an emergency ruling to block Gov. Rick Scott from rejecting $2.4 billion of federal funds for high-speed rail.

The Cincinnati City Council was poised to vote Tuesday on a number of changes to the city’s $2.1 billion pension system in an effort to tackle an estimated $1 billion shortfall.

Court hearings on a lawsuit challenging Chicago’s authority to proceed with $3.36 billion worth of expansion projects at O’Hare International Airport without airline approval have been pushed back due to ongoing settlement negotiations.

Vallejo has been mired in a messy, prolonged and expensive bankruptcy proceeding since May 2008. But if the California city is “the poster boy of a new era,” as some have suggested, that doesn’t look too bad for bondholders.

WASHINGTON — House Financial Services Committee chairman Spencer Bachus, R-Ala., is warning the Securities and Exchange Commission that he does not support its proposed rules for a municipal adviser registration system because they are too broad and do not reflect congressional intent.

Dealer and bank groups warned they face a regulatory quagmire with the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board’s draft muni adviser pay-to-play restrictions because the board and Securities and Exchange Commission define terms associated with muni advisers differently and have varying sets of rules for muni and investment advisers.

BRADENTON, Fla. — The Alabama Education Association, its political action committee, and five individuals have filed a federal suit challenging some of the ethics reform laws passed by the state Legislature in a mid-December special session.

CHICAGO — An Iowa water district’s long-awaited plan to restructure $140 million of debt — including $83 million of water revenue bonds — is now on hold due to litigation filed by Bank of America Corp. in an attempt to block a pending asset sale.

After winning long-awaited approval from a bond insurer, Detroit Public Schools plans to enter the market Thursday with $231 million of one-year notes urgently needed to make payroll through August.

With pundits predicting a "wave of bankruptcies" in the municipal market this year, experts say one thing should be kept in mind: the majority of distressed issuers undergoing the Chapter 9 process don't end up stiffing bondholders.

U.S. mayors descended on Washington this week to combat the budget cuts approved by the House last week that would threaten certain federal programs for local governments, especially the community development block grant program.

WASHINGTON — In an effort to prevent a recurrence of past abuses by broker's brokers, the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board has issued a new draft rule that details what they must do to comply with pricing, fair-dealing, and transaction rules.

The financially ailing Jackson Health System in South Florida could become the latest public nonprofit entity to be taken private despite an ongoing Securities and Exchange Commission inquiry believed to be related to bond disclosure issues.

A statewide grand jury on public corruption said the "squandering of hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars for a mediocre product" saddled the Broward County School District with debt while leaving some areas of the county with overcrowded schools and others with vacancies.

WASHINGTON — State, local, nonprofit and other groups are flooding the Securities and Exchange Commission with complaints that its definition of muni adviser in proposed registration rules is overly broad and would disrupt their bond financings and other activities.

SAN FRANCISCO — A Superior Court judge in California has denied a lawsuit brought by a public employees' union that sought to block a plan for a public-private partnership to rebuild a road linking San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge.