The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority has ordered five firms to pay $137,500 in fines for violations of trade reporting and other municipal securities rules.

Moody's Investors Service has expanded its review for potentially downgrading Miami to include pension obligations and health care costs in addition to pending SEC charges.

The Internal Revenue Service has stepped up its efforts to investigate possible misconduct in the municipal bond sector, more than doubling the number of examinations it conducts per year.

The IRS is auditing $98.5 million of general obligation refunding bonds that the State of Texas Water Financial Assistance issued in 2002.

The Securities and Exchange Commission will not pursue regulations aimed reducing the susceptibility of money market mutual funds to market runs, SEC chairman Mary Schapiro said in a statement Wednesday night.

One of the biggest investor concerns about unfunded public pension liabilities, is whether a government's payment obligations to retirees will compete with debt repayment, according to a Wells Fargo report issued Wednesday.

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority has ordered four firms to pay more than $53,000 in fines and restitution to customers for violations of municipal securities fair-dealing, pricing and other rules.

The IRS is auditing $100.89 million of state capital project bonds that the Alaska Housing Finance Corporation issued in October 2006.

Attorneys for Miami have proposed a settlement to head off federal civil charges proposed by Securities and Exchange Commission, which filed a similar case against the city in the 1990s.

The federal judge assigned to the upcoming bid-rigging trial against three former UBS Financial Services Inc. bankers has struck down requests to drop all six criminal counts of conspiracy, wire fraud, and witness tampering.

The SEC will be asked to allow federal civil charges to be filed against Miami for failing to disclose serious budget problems in its bond offerings.

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority has ordered five firms to pay $117,425 in fines and restitution to customers for violation of municipal securities trade, pricing and supervisory rules.

A group of Senate Democrats is urging the U.S. Department of Justice and federal banking and securities regulators to investigate allegations that domestic and foreign banks manipulated the London Interbank Offered Rate, or Libor, which is used as a benchmark in municipal bond-related swaps and other financial products.

Lawyers for former UBS Financial Services Inc. bankers Peter Ghavami, Gary Heinz and Michael Welty requested permission from the court to present evidence on municipal bond transactions other than 38 specific deals highlighted by prosecutors.

Senate and House committees are looking into allegations that banks manipulated Libor, the London Interbank Offered Rate that is used by financial institutions to set interest rates for financial products, including interest rate swaps used by municipal bond issuers to hedge variable rate debt.

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board is releasing draft rule changes that would prohibit municipal securities dealers from consenting to amendments in bond authorizing documents, except in very limited circumstances.

To make more new-issue data available, the MSRB filed a proposed rule change to prohibit dealers from reporting "NRO" unless they also report price and yield information.

In response to a G-17 interpretive notice that takes effect August 2, a SIFMA task force will release a series of documents underwriters can reference as they prepare disclosures to issuers.

Government attorneys released snippets of taped conversations Monday in which UBS bankers and others use phrases like "baking in Chambers" and "the market," language prosecutors say helped them conspire to set bid prices and determine which firms would win contracts.