Muni Minute: MCDC

In this installment of Muni Minute – a new Bond Buyer weekly video series examining, in 60 seconds, a top story municipal bond market participants should have on their radars for the coming week – we look at what's happening in Washington with the Municipalities Continuing Disclosure Cooperation initiative. With the Securities and Exchange Commission finished with underwriter settlements, it now turns its attention toward issuers, where we will soon see settlements.

WEITZMAN: This week we shift the focus to the regulatory enforcement side in Washington with the municipalities continuing this close cooperation initiative. On February 2nd, the Securities and Exchange Commission complete its investigation of underwriters under the Voluntary Enforcement Program, and paved the way for the commission's first round of issuer settlements. In its third and final round of underwater settlements. 14 underwriters paid $4.5 million to settle charges. They failed to conduct adequate due diligence to identify issuers materially false or misleading statements about their compliance with their continuing disclosure obligations before offering and selling the bonds to customers. Under the initiative which began in March 2014. 72 firms were representing 96% of Muni market underwriting were ordered to pay about 18 million. The SEC will now turn to issuer's who sold Muni's using offering documents containing those false and misleading statements. Those settlements may come soon perhaps as soon as this week. I'm Erin Weitzman and this has been your Muni Minute.