Washington

The MSRB cancelled a board meeting-related press call Monday due to deteriorating weather conditions caused by Hurricane Sandy.

Comments made by banking analyst Meredith Whitney in 2010 about looming municipal defaults caused more damage to the market than market participants charged with fraud in recent years, former muni regulator Paul S. Maco, said Friday.

After weighing which financing was least likely to provoke a third investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission, Miami chose a limited public offering to refinance a bank loan.

Vicky Tsilas, assistant branch chief for the Internal Revenue Service's Office of Associate Chief Counsel, has been named associate tax legislative counsel in the Treasury Department's Office of Tax Policy.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is not pursuing the idea of imposing a three-strikes-and-you're-out system for issuers with disclosure failures, like the one floated last week by an SEC commissioner, John Cross, the director of the SEC's Office of Municipal Securities said here on Thursday.

The National Association of Bond Lawyers elected new officers and announced three new board members here on Wednesday. Scott R. Lilienthal, a partner at Hogan Lovells LLP in Washington, D.C., who had been president-elect, became president, replacing Kristin Franceschi, a partner at DLA Piper LLP in Baltimore.

The National Association of Bond Lawyers has announced winners of three awards recognizing notable service to the association and the public finance sector to Howard Zucker, Dave Caprera, and Hobby Presley.

Underwriters must conduct thorough due-diligence, checking issuers' official statements and continuing disclosure agreements for completeness and accuracy, prior to underwriting their bonds, a Securities and Exchange Commission official warned lawyers here.

Securities and Exchange Commission officials downplayed the potential for the so-called budget "sequestration" Thursday, but said dealers selling Build America Bonds should inform investors of any potentially risky call provisions.

The Securities and Exchange Commission will be hiring more staff for its office of municipal securities in the coming years, the new director, John Cross, told bond lawyers meeting here.