Three muni regulators and enforcement agencies are opening registration for a free compliance outreach program for municipal advisors that they plan to hold in Philadelphia on Wednesday, Feb 3, 2016.

Christopher Brogdon, the retirement home financier who is facing Securities and Exchange Commission charges, has denied being liable for a particularly problematic deal in new filings with a federal court in Georgia.

Municipal market participants want to know why it has taken securities regulators so long to stop Christopher Brogdon from swindling investors by misusing for personal gain the proceeds of bonds and private placements that were supposed to finance the purchase and renovation of senior living facilities.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has obtained an emergency freeze of the assets of an Atlanta-based businessman and filed a lawsuit charging him and his associates with fraud for misusing investor proceeds that were intended to be used to purchase and renovate senior living facilities.

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority has ordered R.M. Duncan Securities, its president and chief executive officer, and a broker to pay a combined $166,000 for selling defaulted municipal securities from their own accounts to seniors at unreasonably high prices and for not maintaining adequate supervisory procedures.

The second wave of underwriter settlements was similar to the first, but with some new details on issuers failures to comply with prior continuing disclosure undertakings.

Seven former Internal Revenue Service commissioners are decrying ongoing House and Senate appropriations cuts for the IRS, warning they are hurting tax enforcement as well as taxpayer assistance, among other things.

Issuers should monitor bond activity for compliance violations, an IRS tax law specialist said at a Bond Buyer conference in Providence, R.I.

Rating agencies are continuing to treat municipal issuers unfairly even though federal law required that practice to stop, former California Treasurer Bill Lockyer said.

South Carolina’s Tuomey Healthcare System has negotiated a reduced settlement of $72.4 million with the Justice Department for filing 21,000 false Medicare claims.

Landolt Securities, Inc. has been ordered by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority to pay $20,000 for violating municipal trade reporting, books and records, and supervisory rules.

Christopher Brogdon, who was at the center of more than a dozen problematic healthcare municipal bond deals for which at least $2 million was unaccounted for, will resign from the board of healthcare firm AdCare.

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority ordered San Juan-based Santander Securities on Tuesday to pay $6.4 million for supervisory failures related to Puerto Rican municipal bonds.

At least three major Wall Street firms have not settled with the Securities and Exchange Commission under its Municipalities Continuing Disclosure Cooperation initiative, noted some lawyers who were involved with a National Association of Bond Lawyers survey on the impact of MCDC.

The Securities and Exchange Commission said Monday that it reached an undisclosed settlement with two ex-JPMorgan bankers involved in Jefferson County, Ala.’s sewer deals.

The Securities and Exchange Commission ordered 22 municipal securities underwriting firms to pay $4.12 million in civil penalties in the second round of what some lawyers said on Wednesday will be three total rounds of underwriter settlements under the commission’s Municipalities Continuing Disclosure Cooperation initiative.

UBS Financial Services of Puerto Rico agreed to pay $34 million to settle charges by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority and Securities and Exchange Commission that it failed to supervise the suitability of transactions in Puerto Rican closed-end fund shares, as well as a former broker who had customers invest in those CEFs using money borrowed from an affiliated bank.

A bond investor’s suspicions triggered a municipal bond trustee’s firing of a vice president but the question remains: what happened to more than $2 million?

The Securities and Exchange Commission has proposed to update its rules for administrative proceedings to provide more flexibility to parties and improve the availability of documents to the public.

Former Internal Revenue Service director Mark Scott is urging the IRS to revoke a private-letter ruling that was favorable for a total return swap, arguing that TRS’ are “[arbitrage scheme[s]” that have “resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars of illegal tax benefits being stolen.”