Law and regulation

The heightened focus on disclosure in green bonds could inspire better disclosure practices in the larger municipal bond market, S&P Global Ratings said in a report this week.

Securities and Exchange Commission chair Mary Jo White announced today that she will leave her position at the end of the Obama administration.

Municipal market groups and other market participants are recommending that the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board focus its future strategic priorities on improving its EMMA system and transparency as well as cost-benefit analyses of its rulemaking.

MSRB executive director Lynnette Kelly tells the SEC's Investor Advocate what retail muni investors need.

Five are named to the MSRB's Investment Advisory Board for 2017.

Donald Trump's plans to dismantle the Dodd-Frank Act and impose a moratorium on new regulations could affect the municipal bond market.

The stage for is set for historic tax reform that could imperil the tax exemption for municipal bonds.

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board's proposal to require dealers to disclose their markups and markdowns in certain transactions is long overdue and will greatly benefit retail investors, said the Securities and Exchange Commission's Investor Advocate.

Scottrade has agreed to pay $150,000 to settle Financial Industry Regulatory Authority charges that it did not identify bonds as callable in approximately 5,000 municipal securities transactions.

The worst is yet to come in the SEC's enforcement of municipal disclosure efforts, and it will be very costly for the issuers who missed the boat.

The par amount of municipal trades continued to grow in the third quarter of 2016, reaching a three-year high and beating the total from the third quarter a year ago by more than 50%, according to recently released Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board statistics.

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board wants to amend several of its rules to both create a municipal advisor client complaint process as well as update and streamline its current requirements related to dealer customer complaints.

A New York audit firm and one of its senior partners have agreed to pay a combined $555,000 and take a number of corrective actions to settle Securities and Exchange Commission charges that they issued fraudulent audit reports in connection with municipal bond offerings from the town of Ramapo, N.Y.

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board plans to amend its proposal that would require dealers to disclose their markups and markdowns in principal trades with retail customers.

The Securities and Exchange Commission will continue to go after investment bankers and issuer officials to try to debunk the notion that enforcement is just another “cost of doing business,” an SEC official said here on Friday.

Underwriters should walk away from municipal securities transactions when they discover the issuer has failed to disclose key information, dealer officials said here, citing their own experiences as examples.

A federal court judge has approved Miami's $1 million settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission over charges the city acted fraudulently in taking steps to hide its deteriorating financial condition from bondholders.

Financial Industry Regulatory Authority examiners are probing firms’ involvement with bank loans and other alternative financings in the municipal market, a FINRA official said at an industry seminar here.

A large drop in foreclosures through the first half of this year means lower loan losses for state housing finance agencies’ bond programs, according to a report by Moody’s Investors Service.

Underwriters’ counsel should be more proactive in keeping up to date with regulators’ concerns and then communicating those to their underwriter clients, a dealer official said here.