Law and regulation

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board is asking for comments both on draft amendments to its current dealer advertising rule that would harmonize it with other regulators’ rules as well as on a proposed rule that would extend many of those dealer provisions to municipal advisors.

The Government Finance Officers Association’s executive board has approved a series of new and revised best practices that make recommendations to issuers about refundings, investing their public funds, and procuring financial services.

Municipal market analysts are concerned that Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board data shows more issuers are giving themselves 270 days after the end of their fiscal years to file annual financial information.

House Financial Services Committee Republicans have floated a revised version of a their Financial CHOICE Act that would require the Securities and Exchange Commission to review municipal market and other self-regulatory organizations' inefficiencies as well as reform its enforcement process

Mike Sudsina, managing partner of Vermillion, Ohio-based Sudsina & Associates, has replaced Larry Kidwell as president of the National Association of Municipal Advisors.

House and Senate members have reintroduced companion bills that would allow state and local governments to issue up to $5 billion of private activity bonds to finance the repair or construction of schools and other public buildings under public-private partnership arrangements.

The House Financial Services Committee intends to review municipal bond regulators and other aspects of the capital markets with an eye toward rolling back certain programs, according to an oversight plan from the committee.

Market participants and others signed up for email alerts from the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board’s EMMA website can now specify the types of continuing disclosure filings they would like to be notified of related to the securities they choose to follow.

Long-term municipal bond issuance is expected to fall to $417.5 billion this year from $423.8 billion last year, according to a survey released by the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association on Wednesday.

Julie Egan, senior vice president and portfolio manager with Community Capital Management, is the new chair for the National Federation of Municipal Analysts, the group announced Tuesday.

Citigroup Global Markets, Inc. has agreed to pay a $250,000 fine after the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority found rule violations including the failure to report accurate interest rate reset information for 251,507 variable rate demand obligation securities.

A Trump executive order to pull back rules and the costs they impose encourages independent agencies like the Securities and Exchange Commission to review their rules even though the order does not apply to them, according to guidance issued Monday.

President Trump’s executive order to scale back the Dodd-Frank Act opens the door for regulatory reform that could touch on municipal securities, although any substantive changes to the act would have to be left to Congress.

Phoenix-based Lawson Financial Corp. had its Financial Industry Regulatory Authority membership revoked and its CEO and president was barred from the industry after FINRA found they fraudulently sold millions of dollars of municipal revenue bonds.

Two Puerto Rico residents are firing back at UBS, saying the firm's challenge in federal court of an $18 million Financial Industry Regulatory Authority arbitration award over losses in Puerto Rico bonds is "a hopeless and baseless attempt at an unwarranted do over."

Market participants interested in serving on the board of directors for the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board have sixteen more days to apply for a term that would start Oct. 1 and last four years.

Committee Republicans, lacking Democrats, waive their quorum rule and vote to recommend the Senate confirm Steven Mnuchin as Treasury Secretary.

A federal judge has denied former Miami budget director Michael Boudreaux's motion for a new trial after a jury found him guilty of securities fraud for misleading municipal bond investors, but he is still exploring options for appeal, his lawyer said.

Marc Wyatt, director of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations, plans to leave the SEC next month to return to the private sector, the commission announced on Monday.

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board will propose to codify its long-time regulatory interpretation that dealers are required to apply for CUSIP numbers when conducting private placements.