Washington

Legislation to require California issuers to provide significantly more information about their bond payments and uses of proceeds appears to be marching toward passage.

A suburban Chicago school district that ran into financial trouble after mishandling bond proceeds faces a Securities and Exchange Commission inquiry.

The Government Finance Officers Association has issued an alert urging members to be ready for conversations with their counsel and quick turnarounds of settlements under the Securities and Exchange Commission's program to voluntarily self-report continuing disclosure violations.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is "very focused" on examining whether there were any securities law violations involving Puerto Rico bonds as the commonwealth's fiscal situation deteriorated over the last few years, SEC chair Mary Jo White told the Senate Banking Committee on Tuesday.

In a first of a kind case, two California-based municipal advisory firms and their executives agreed to pay a total of $200,000 to settle Securities and Exchange Commission charges that they used deceptive business practices in dealing with five school districts.

Attorney Robert W. Cook has been tapped by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority’s board of governors to become chief executive officer of FINRA during the second half of the year.

U.S. banks' holdings of municipal bonds increased to $507.5 billion in the first quarter of 2016, a 1.7% gain from the $499 billion of holdings in the fourth quarter of 2015.

The full Senate is expected to take up the Puerto Rico bill passed by the House and vote on it before the end of the month or in early July.

The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association is urging the Securities and Exchange Commission to amend its Rule 15c2-12 on municipal bond disclosure and provide more guidance in this area.

The Government Finance Officers Association has released a five-page primer on municipal advisor rules that should be entitled, “Everything you need to know about these rules and how they affect issuers.”