Washington

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board plans to rebate $5.5 million proportionally among dealers, file a proposal with the Securities and Exchange Commission on markup disclosure, and scrap the idea of requiring municipal advisors to disclose information about their issuer client's bank loans or privately placed municipal securities.

The small Florida city of Opa-locka is on the verge of bankruptcy, according to the head of a state-appointed oversight board.

Goldman Sachs & Co. has agreed to pay $50,000 to settle Financial Industry Regulatory Authority charges that it submitted inaccurate auction rate securities information to a reporting system and did not have a supervisory system in place to catch the problems.

A Pennsylvania school district said it expects to receive a proposed adverse determination letter from the Internal Revenue Service stating general obligation bonds it issued in 2005 and advance refunded in 2013 are taxable.

The Securities and Exchange Commission was legally required by fiscal 2016 appropriation act provisions to reject changes to Rule G-37 that extended political contribution restrictions to municipal advisors, three state Republican groups told federal appeals court judges.

Not enough has been done to provide municipal issuers, obligated parties and underwriters the clarity sought and needed by the market.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is arguing it can't fight a lawsuit challenging a revised rule to curb municipal securities pay-to-play activity because the fiscal 2016 appropriations act prohibits it from spending money on any rules governing political contributions.

California Treasurer John Chiang announced that municipal finance firms seeking state business will be required to certify that they will make no contributions to local bond election campaigns in the state.

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board wants to cut in half a proposed requirement that would have mandated municipal securities transactions be closed out within 20 days of settlement after dealer groups urged the self-regulator to do so.

The town of Ramapo, N.Y. and one of four individuals charged with securities fraud by the Securities and Exchange Commission for misleading muni bond investors are disputing the charges and urging a federal judge to dismiss the case.