Law and regulation

Pressure is mounting for the Securities and Exchange Commission to complete its rulemaking defining municipal advisors, with congressional aides saying a House panel will likely hold a hearing on potentially preemptive legislation after the August recess.

The Senate Banking Committee unanimously agreed to recommend the full Senate confirm Kara Stein and Michael Piwowar as Securities and Exchange Commission members and approve chairman Mary Jo White to serve a full term.

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board, at its quarterly meeting in Boston next week, will consider whether to create a rule to crackdown on front running as well as request comments on applying best execution practices in municipal bond.

The Senate Banking Committee will meet Thursday to vote on whether to recommend the Senate confirm two nominees to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

A Virginia circuit court is preparing to reconsider Fluvanna County's lawsuit against financial advisor Davenport & Co., after the state supreme court rejected the firm's motion for a rehearing of the state Supreme Court's decision to reverse a ruling that had favored it.

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority fined four firms $106,000 and fined and suspended an individual for municipal securities rule violations.

A Financial Industry Regulatory hearing panel has suspended former broker Anthony Grey for two years, fined him $30,000, and ordered him to disgorge $16,000 in ill-gotten gains for routing muni bond trades through his personal accounts before selling them, through his firm, to retail customers at excessive markups.

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board announced Wednesday it will launch a tool to help issuers keep track of the dates they must file periodic financial disclosures to its EMMA website. But some question whether this will cause a dispute between the MSRB and Digital Assurance Certification.

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board's EMMA system received more than 500,000 continuing disclosure documents from municipal securities issuers or their agents between July 2009 and March 2013, the board reported Wednesday.

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board has filed rule changes with the Securities and Exchange Commission that would ease the standard of independence for its board.

The Internal Revenue Service has floated guidance to address a tax law concern about rules proposed by the Securities and Exchange Commission that could require money market funds to move to floating net asset values.

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board is urging the Securities and Exchange Commission to give it more time to comply with proposed rules that would require it to develop, test, maintain and monitor the technological systems that are integral to its operations as well as clarification about the extent to which the rules would apply.

Although municipal issuer defaults in the first half of 2013 are at a multi-year high at $7.6 billion, overall sector trends appear to be improving, according to a report published by Municipal Market Advisors Tuesday.

Municipal market participants say two Securities and Exchange Commission nominees, near toward confirmation, could influence both rulemaking and enforcement actions.

A bipartisan, bicameral foursome reintroduced legislation that would authorize $50 billion of tax-credit bonds over six years.

The sentencing dates of more convicted municipal bond bid-riggers have been pushed back, according to documents filed with the U.S. district Courts for the Southern District of New York and Western District of North Carolina, as prosecutors seek stiffer penalties for price-fixing of investment contracts.

Elaine Greenberg, chief of the Securities and Exchange Commission's Municipal Securities and Public Pensions Enforcement Unit, will step down at the end of July.

The Senate Banking Committee will hold a hearing June 27 to consider two nominees to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Investment Company Institute president and chief executive officer Paul Schott Stevens said Wednesday that ICI supports one federal proposal on money market fund reform, but strongly opposes the other.

Standard and Poor's has told issuers of municipal bonds this week that the rating agency expects borrowers seeking a rating to disclose all debt-like obligations, including increasingly-popular bank loans.