Washington

David Lerner Associates Inc. has agreed to pay some $4.3 million in fines and restitution for charging excessive markups on transactions of municipal bonds and collateralized-mortgage obligations between 2005 and 2012.

Marcy Edwards, senior financial policy advisor to the District of Columbia's chief financial officer, has been named a public board member of the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board, the MSRB announced Monday.

The SEC could tighten oversight of muni underwriters or adopt a "three strike system" for issuers if lawmakers fail to grant the SEC authority to set disclosure standards for issuers, a top regulator said Friday.

Walter Timpone, the defense attorney for one of the three convicted former banking executives in the muni bond bid-rigging trial is confident about an appeal.

After hearing tearful requests for leniency, federal Judge Harold Baer imposed prison and fines on three former bankers convicted of municipal bond bid rigging.

Jeanine Rodgers Caruso, president of Fiscal Advisors & Marketing Inc., is the new board president of the National Association of Independent Public Finance Advisors

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority has ordered seven firms to pay more than $260,000 in fines and restitution to customers for violations of trade reporting and other municipal securities rules.

The Securities and Exchange Commission hopes to finalize its definition of municipal advisor early next year, according to the head of the SEC's municipal securities office.

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority and four major industry groups spent millions of dollars on lobbyists to push their agendas on Capitol Hill, while the National Association of State Treasurers was the only governmental group to report hiring lobbyists, according to annual tax forms 22 muni-related groups filed with the Internal Revenue Service.

Middle-market, fixed-income dealer firms are adding staffers to their compliance divisions, part of an expensive effort to comply with a host of new financial regulations coming from Washington, D.C., some executives said at a meeting here.