Washington

Municipal market trading volume fell 13% from the first quarter of last year, according to statistics released by the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board on Tuesday.

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority fined a dealer firm and fined and suspended an individual for violations of Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board rules, FINRA revealed in its monthly disciplinary report for May.

The U.S. government wrongfully extended the statute of limitations to obtain bid-rigging convictions for three ex-UBS bankers, lawyers told an appeals court.

Federal aid for Puerto Rico and its cash-strapped issuing authorities is not going to happen, former governor Luis Fortuño told municipal analysts Thursday.

Any well-publicized enforcement action over whether bank loans should be treated as securities would certainly provide some guidance on this issue, Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board executive director Lynnette Kelly told muni analysts meeting here.

The National Federation of Municipal Analysts presented awards to six muni market professionals during a luncheon at its annual conference in Las Vegas Wednesday.

“Don’t fear the Fed” and looming interest rate increases, a senior economist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch Global Research told municipal analysts meeting here Wednesday

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority’s appellate tribunal has revised its sanction guidelines, proposing significant increases in the highest level of fines for disciplinary actions and tougher sanctions for cases involving fraud and recommendations of unsuitable investments.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has frequently pursued recent municipal market enforcement actions in federal court rather than in front of its own administrative law judges, where critics have charged that the SEC enjoys a distinct home field advantage.

The annual average length of time between the end of the fiscal year and the date on which audited financial statements were submitted to EMMA was 448 days in 2014, sharply above the average of 342 days in 2013, a Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board report found.