Law and regulation

Municipal market participants at The Bond Buyer's California Public Finance Conference shared concrete examples of how disclosure is improving in the wake of the Securities and Exchange Commission's continuing disclosure voluntary enforcement initiative.

About 680 firms, with 4,500 associated professionals, were registered as municipal advisors as of September, the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board’s chairman told House and Senate committee leaders in a letter detailing the board’s compliance with the Dodd-Frank Act.

Stark Municipal Brokers and Performance Trust Capital Partners have agreed to pay a combined $25,000 over reporting violations uncovered by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority and a former chief executive officer of an Atlanta-based securities company has agreed to be barred from the market in a FINRA action that involves alleged securities fraud.

Money market mutual funds’ holdings of municipal bonds fell by nearly $42 billion dollars between the second quarter of this year and the same period last year, a change that is partially the result of soon-to-become-effective rule changes from the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The securities fraud jury verdict against the city of Miami and its former budget director Michael Boudreaux on Wednesday will likely embolden the Securities and Exchange Commission to litigate rather than settle cases against issuers and their officials, lawyers said on Thursday.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has approved proposed rule changes from the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board that would authorize the board to provide three-year old trade data for academic studies that would identify dealers in some way without naming them.

In a first-of-a-kind verdict, a Miami jury found on Wednesday that Miami and its former budget director, Michael Boudreaux, were guilty of securities fraud for faulty disclosures in connection with three 2009 municipal bond offerings.

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority ordered UBS to pay $750,000 in damages to two Puerto Rico bondholders.

The House Financial Services Committee on Tuesday passed a bill by a vote of 30 to 26 that would divert the funding the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board gets from enforcement actions, remove the independence of the Securities and Exchange Commission's Office of Municipal Securities, and allow certain banks to be exempt from liquidity coverage ratio requirements.

California Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation requiring more bond disclosure from California issuers.

The orders provide some insight into what the Securities and Exchange Commission considers to be a material false or misleading statement in an offering document.

The Securities and Exchange Commission should consider obtaining registration and disclosure authority over corporate conduit borrowers in the municipal market, said SEC Commissioner Michael Piwowar.

The Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday announced that a subsidiary of BOK Financial Corp. that served as indenture trustee and dissemination agent for municipal conduit bonds previously tied to securities fraud has agreed to pay more than $1.6 million to settle charges that it helped to conceal numerous problems and red flags from investors in the securities.

The Government Finance Officers Association sent an alert to its members on Thursday about the importance of timely disclosures in the wake of issuer settlements with the Securities and Exchange Commission under its voluntary continuing disclosure enforcement initiative.

The Ramapo Local Development Corp. and three individuals facing Securities and Exchange Commission securities fraud charges are asking a federal judge to dismiss the SEC's complaint, claiming, among other things, that no one was hurt.

In an historic action, the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board has filed a markup disclosure proposal with the Securities and Exchange Commission that it said will likely lower transaction costs for retail investors, enable them to better understand dealers' pricing practices, and improve investor confidence in the municipal market.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is asking a federal judge to allow it to submit an amended complaint that includes much more detailed charges against banker Peter Cannava in connection with an ill-fated private placement for startup video game company 38 Studios.

West Virginia’s attorney general has reached settlements totaling $1.28 million with four firms in a lawsuit that alleged they engaged in bid rigging and price fixing for municipal investments, the latest action in federal and state investigations of bid rigging in the muni market that stretch back more than ten years.

Financial regulators and others should work to reverse the increased narrowing of the municipal market caused by fewer retail investors and wealthier bondholders, the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Investor Advocate told regulators.

Piper Jaffray & Co. has agreed to pay a $12,500 fine after the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority found the firm submitted 23 disclosure documents related to primary offerings late to the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board’s EMMA system.