Law and regulation

Ross Sinclaire & Associates has agreed to pay $250,000 and to disgorge ill-gotten gains to settle muni rules violations with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority after it improperly acted as a financial advisor and underwriter on the same muni issuances. The Cincinnati-based firm also failed to disclose material facts in offering documents and was late in filing underwriting disclosures with regulators, FINRA said.

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The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board’s rule changes to prevent municipal advisors from engaging in pay-to-play practices are constitutional and comply with federal statutes, contrary to the claims of three Republican groups, the MSRB told a federal appeals court on Monday

Revere Securities was fined $10,000 for trade reporting failures while two individuals were fined a total of $22,500 and suspended for improper trading of municipal securities and supervisory failures by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.

Brad Bennett, who oversaw many important municipal bond enforcement cases over nearly six years, plans to leave the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority as its enforcement chief early next year and return to private practice.

Market groups and firms are asking the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board to rethink proposed rule changes related to complaints, saying they should be adapted to better fit the differences in the relationships that municipal advisors have with clients and dealers have customers.

The Securities and Exchange Commission will not bring any more settlements under its Municipalities Continuing Disclosure Cooperation initiative and will instead focus on those underwriters and issuers that did not voluntarily disclose violations under the MCDC.

Issuer officials who said Treasury's final issue price rules are a vast improvement over earlier proposals nevertheless raised concern that they might discourage competitive sales of bonds or create problems for issuers if underwriters run afoul of the rules.

The Securities and Exchange Commission’s top cop Andrew Ceresney plans to leave the SEC by the end of the year after helping to bring several ground-breaking municipal bonds and other enforcement cases.

A bill introduced by Rep. Gwen Moore, D-Wis., that would shift municipal disclosure responsibilities to issuers and borrowers from underwriters could drive some localities out of the market, issuer officials warned Moore’s chief of staff on Thursday.