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.”

The North Broward Hospital District in Florida will pay the federal government $69.5 million to settle allegations that it violated the False Claims Act, according to the Justice Department.

Securities and Exchange Commission top cop Andrew Ceresney and a Justice Department official warned legislators on Wednesday that a bill to update the Electronic Communication Privacy Act of 1986 could hurt their enforcement programs.

A federal investigation into loan guarantees made by the Town of Oyster Bay, N.Y. could impact the credit rating of New York's fourth largest township, according to Moody's Investors Service.

Four broker-dealer firms have been ordered by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority to pay a total of $67,500 for municipal trade reporting and related violations.

SEC enforcement officials want muni market participants to know that they have 30 people, mostly staff attorneys, in eight offices around the country who have significant expertise in muni issues.

Securities and Exchange Commission officials rejected bond lawyers’ suggestions that the settlements with 36 underwriters under the Municipalities Continuing Disclosure Cooperation initiative contained specific parameters of continuing disclosure violations.

Should industry practices on pricing new bonds change in the wake of the SEC’s enforcement case against Edward Jones?