Law and regulation

Two ex-JPMorgan bankers shouldn't be allowed to give statements six years after taking the Fifth Amendment in the Jefferson County, Ala., sewer bond and swap case, the SEC says.

The Bond Dealers of America has hired two new people and promoted a current employee to boost its advocacy efforts.

Bank regulators may think excluding municipal securities from high-quality liquid assets in their liquidity rule is no big deal, but Moody's Investors Service issued a report on Friday saying it may negatively affect credit ratings in the muni market.

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board, the primary regulator of the $3.7 trillion municipal market, plans to move back to Washington, D.C. after spending more than 15 years in Alexandria, Va.

A Treasury Department official, a former Federal Reserve Board chair, congressional staffers and state treasurers spoke at an industry-sponsored municipal securities conference on Thursday that was closed to the press.

Dave Sanchez, a lawyer who previously worked in the Securities and Exchange Commission's Office of Municipal Securities, has launched a new practice that will focus on securities law compliance for issuers and municipal advisors.

A large number of dealer firms have voluntarily reported to the Securities and Exchange Commission deals they underwrote where issuers failed to disclose noncompliance with their continuing disclosure agreements, the SEC's enforcement director said Wednesday.

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board has hired former BondDesk Trading LLC president John Bagley as its chief market structure officer, the MSRB announced Wednesday.

Sen. Chuck Schumer, calling municipal securities the "lifeblood" of U.S. infrastructure development, pressed regulators to revise federal banking liquidity rules to classify certain munis as high-quality liquid assets.

The National Association of State Treasurers' priorities include maintaining the tax- exempt status of municipal bonds, preventing local government investment pools from being hurt by money market mutual fund reforms, and helping to develop criteria under which munis could be considered high-quality liquid assets, said its incoming president, David Lillard, Tennessee' treasurer.

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board is seeking public comment on its priorities as it plans for the next two years and beyond, the MSRB announced Monday.

The Municipal Advisory Council of Texas is allowing issuers to post their IRMA representations on its website to help obtain information from financial services firms without violating Securities and Exchange Commission's municipal advisor rule.

The National Association of Bond Lawyers has announced that it will present three of its members with awards when the group meets in Chicago next month.

Municipal securities will not qualify as high-quality liquid assets under a new federal liquidity coverage ratio rule slated to take effect on Jan. 1. However, the Federal Reserve Board is working on a proposal to include some municipal bonds as HQLA at a later date.

State treasurers and financial officers are urging federal banking regulators to identify quantitative liquidity standards or characteristics that would allow at least some municipal securities to qualify as high-quality liquid assets in a rule to be released on Wednesday.

A more than $700 million dollar deal that RBC Capital Markets executed in New Mexico earlier this month is has raised the eyebrows of some market participants, who think the firm's municipal advisory relationships with several New Mexico cities created a conflict of interest when it underwrote the deal for a power authority run by those municipalities.

A bipartisan House duo is threatening the Securities and Exchange Commission, warning it must further ease the Municipalities Continuing Disclosure Cooperation initiative for dealers before the Sept. 10 deadline for participation or they will step in with legislative action.

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board failed to address concerns that its proposed municipal advisor supervision rule will be too costly and burdensome, non-dealer MAs told the Securities and Exchange Commission this week.

The Securities and Exchange Commission's new credit rating agency reforms seem to make some positive strides for the muni market by creating parity between municipal and corporate bond ratings and increasing rating methodology transparency, sources said.

Non-dealer municipal advisors are concerned that the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board's draft core MA rule contains an exemption for "inadvertent advice," while broker-dealers say certain aspects of the rule are too vague and too broad.