Law and regulation

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board wants to cut in half a proposed requirement that would have mandated municipal securities transactions be closed out within 20 days of settlement after dealer groups urged the self-regulator to do so.

The town of Ramapo, N.Y. and one of four individuals charged with securities fraud by the Securities and Exchange Commission for misleading muni bond investors are disputing the charges and urging a federal judge to dismiss the case.

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board is aiming to make progress on a number of high-profile projects during its board meeting next week including markup and bank loan disclosure as well as a new municipal advisor complaint system and plans to improve EMMA.

Municipal market participants are criticizing as too low the $50,000 fine that the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority imposed on Dougherty & Co. after finding the firm served as an underwriter for 54 issuers with which it had ongoing “blanket” financial advisory agreements.

Elaine Greenberg, the former head of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s municipal enforcement unit, has joined Greenberg Traurig’s Washington D.C. office as a shareholder, the firm announced Tuesday.

Republicans delegates adopted a 2016 platform at their national convention in Cleveland that supports statehood for Puerto Rico, but not for the District of Columbia. The GOP also wants to abolish the Internal Revenue Service, overhaul the federal tax code, and expand the use of P3s for infrastructure projects.

Dougherty & Co. was hit with the largest Financial Industry Regulatory Authority fine of its kind in recent years after the firm agreed to pay $50,000 for serving as an underwriter for 54 issuers with which it had ongoing "blanket" financial advisory agreements.

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board is providing some new information about muni trades on its Electronic Municipal Market Access (EMMA) system.

Oriental Financial Services, Hilltop Securities, Alluvion Securities and Sterne, Agee & Leach have agreed to pay a combined $133,358 for municipal securities violations uncovered by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.

Rep. Peter DeFazio’s bill to impose a 0.03% tax on secondary market trades of stocks, bonds and derivatives would include tax-exempt as well as corporate bonds, a spokeswoman for the Democrat from Oregon said on Thursday.

A recent study’s findings that the share of households holding municipal debt fell considerably over a 24-year period with a corresponding condensing of ownership in the hands of the wealthiest may lead to political questions related to muni debt, the study’s authors conclude.

The National Federation of Municipal Analysts wants issuers to improve their disclosures about statutory liens and how they could affect general obligation bonds following a slew of recent municipal bankruptcies where this was a key issue.

Federal Chapter 9 policy is ill-defined and fluid, a bankruptcy expert said at a municipal finance conference at the Brookings Institution in Washington.

In the past 3½ years, the Securities and Exchange Commission has asserted its enforcement role considerably, in what can fairly be described as a form of direct regulation of issuers.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is battling with Miami and former budget director Michael Boudreaux over whether they can defend themselves against securities fraud charges by saying they relied on advice from auditors.

The federal judge presiding over a Securities and Exchange Commission case charging the city of Miami and its former budget director with securities fraud concluded in a July 5 order that the bulk of the case could not be decided before trial

Three state Republican parties challenging the constitutionality of a revised Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board anti-pay-to-play rule are asking a federal circuit court to streamline the legal process by consolidating their two pending cases.

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board is asking the Securities and Exchange Commission to approve rule changes that would create a new academic trade product with anonymous dealer identifiers that has proved somewhat controversial.

President Obama signed the Puerto Rico relief bill Thursday, paving the way for the appointment of an oversight board and the first steps in what legislators and observers agree will be a long process of bolstering the commonwealth’s fiscal health.

The Senate is poised to pass the Puerto Rico rescue bill after clearing what many say was the final hurdle for the legislation on Wednesday morning, invoking cloture by a vote of 68 to 32.