Law and legal issues

SAN FRANCISCO - The deadline pressures for California's leaders to bring the state's general fund budget into balance were further emphasized Friday when Moody's Investors Service placed the state's A2 general obligation bond rating on watch list for possible downgrade.

SAN FRANCISCO - The California Supreme Court last week declined to hear the appeal of a case that challenged the state's ability to issue lease revenue bonds.

WASHINGTON - The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board today will release and seek public comments on draft changes to its Rule G-37 on political contributions that would require dealers to disclose contributions they make to campaign committees pushing bond ballot initiatives.

CHICAGO - Illinois has launched a request for proposals process for law firms, financial advisers and underwriters interested in working on a surge of debt issuance planned in the coming two years if lawmakers can break an impasse over how to balance the state's operating budget.

BRADENTON, Fla.— In a two-page ruling Friday afternoon, Miami-Dade County Circuit Court Judge Lawrence Schwartz denied a request by two local residents for an emergency injunction to stop the county from selling bonds to finance a new stadium for the Florida Marlins.

BRADENTON, Fla. - After hearing from more than a dozen professionals and local elected officials about the future use of variable-rate debt and derivatives in Tennessee, the state's comptroller has decided to take comments from the public before finalizing recommendations to the State Funding Board.

WASHINGTON - The sweeping financial regulatory reform plan that the Obama administration unveiled yesterday calls for expanding the authority of the Securities and Exchange Commission to promote transparency in disclosures to investors, which some market participants said appears to be in line with the SEC's plans to bolster its oversight of municipal securities.

WASHINGTON - The chairman of a House subcommittee said yesterday that he plans to push pending legislation that would give the federal government a greater role in examining insurance companies and their holding companies, while an insurance industry official urged lawmakers to mandate federal regulations for bond insurers.

BRADENTON, Fla. - In a long-awaited ruling late Friday, federal Judge David Proctor said that Jefferson County's sewer bond trustee and two insurers of the troubled sewer debt "are entitled to prevail on the facts" but he could not appoint the receiver they sought for the sewer system because the law favored the Alabama county.

WASHINGTON - The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority fined seven firms a total of $184,500, including $80,000 for Tulsa-based BOSC Inc., for failing to timely or accurately report municipal securities, unfairly pricing bonds, as well as other muni and non-muni rule violations.

WASHINGTON — The financial markets regulatory reform plan that the Obama administration is to propose Wednesday does not include changes to the structure or jurisdiction of the Securities and Exchange Commission, or to self-regulatory organizations that operate under it such as the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board, a senior administration official said in a background briefing with reporters Tuesday night.

As climate change legislation makes its way through the House and the country's job losses continue, the credit profiles of many investment-grade utilities could suffer despite their usual strength in the face of financial strife, Standard & Poor's said.

WASHINGTON - The Regional Bond Dealers Association has launched an attack on what it calls the CUSIP Service Bureau's "aggressive campaign to extract licensing fees" from muni market participants, claiming the bureau is trying to "prohibit, restrict and exploit" the use of Cusips, which are purchased by issuers and required by the market.

The American Bar Association's committee on tax-exempt financing has requested priority guidance on municipal bonds from the Internal Revenue Service, including a definition for issue price and responses to questions about Build America Bonds and qualified school construction bonds.

The public power sector remained relatively financially stable through fiscal 2008 despite the economic downturn, partly because utilities were able to restructure variable-rate and auction-rate debt, as well as unwind out-of-the-money swaps, Fitch Ratings will say in a report released today.

SAN FRANCISCO - The top finance official in Mammoth Lakes, Calif., says there is no chance the resort community will fail to redeem $2 million in notes at the end of the month, despite a Standard & Poor's ratings action casting doubt on its ability to do so.

WASHINGTON - The Securities and Exchange Commission has approved a request from the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board that will allow its EMMA system to begin collecting issuers' voluntary filings of non-required financial or operating data as well as event-based disclosures on July 1, the same day the board launches the system's permanent continuing disclosure component.

WASHINGTON - The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board reminded dealers yesterday that its Rule G-37 ban on political contributions applies to dealers soliciting business involving Build America Bonds, as well as other types of taxable tax-credit bonds.

WASHINGTON — DPC Data Inc., is urging the Securities and Exchange Commission to delay for six months the planned July 1 switch from four nationally repositories for issuers' secondary market muni bond disclosures to one run by the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board called EMMA, warning that the transition is "a disaster waiting to happen."

WASHINGTON - The National Federation of Municipal Analysts is calling for municipal disclosure practices to be made more like corporate disclosures and is urging lawmakers to provide a federal regulator with the authority to directly oversee muni disclosures and market participants.