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The Securities and Exchange Commission approved a Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board rule change last week that requires broker-dealers that have sold long-term municipal securities within the past year to test [...]

The Senate easily confirmed three nominees to the Securities and Exchange Commission by voice vote on Friday, including Elisse Walter, who served on the SEC's staff from 1977 to 1994 [...]

WASHINGTON -- In the first state-level lawsuit against an investment firm over auction-rate securities, Massachusetts Secretary of State William Galvin filed securities fraud charges yesterday against UBS Securities LLC and [...]

WASHINGTON -- The Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday sought to limit the influence of credit rating agencies and boost the role of analysts at investment firms, in the last of [...]

WASHINGTON -- At the request of Republican members, House Financial Services Committee chairman Barney Frank, D-Mass., has postponed until next month a vote on a bill he is sponsoring that [...]

WASHINGTON -- Market participants are concerned the 'Municipal Bond Fairness Act' sponsored by House Financial Services chairman Barney Frank, D-Mass., scheduled to be voted on by the committee today, includes [...]

WASHINGTON -- House Financial Services Committee chairman Barney Frank unveiled two bills Friday that would require credit rating agencies to rate municipal and other securities solely on the likelihood of [...]

WASHINGTON -- The legislation that House Financial Services Committee chairman Barney Frank, D-Mass., is planning to introduce within the next week or so to require credit agencies to rate municipal [...]

A judicial panel this week ordered the consolidation in a federal court in New York City of seven related class action lawsuits brought by a number of states and localities [...]

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- The Government Finance Officers Association's debt committee on Saturday proposed guidance that strongly discourages an issuer from allowing a dealer-financial adviser to switch roles and become [...]

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- The outgoing president of the Government Finance Officers Association strongly denounced attempts by individual states to create their own accounting standards, emphasizing the issuer group's embrace [...]

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- In response to stepped up Securities and Exchange Commission enforcement actions against individual public finance officials for alleged disclosure failures, the Government Finance Officers Association's committee [...]

WASHINGTON -- The Securities and Exchange Commission voted yesterday to propose the first two sets of new rules for credit rating agencies that would limit their conflicts of interest, increase [...]

WASHINGTON -- The Securities and Exchange Commission plans to propose rules today that are designed to boost the transparency and accountability of the regulated rating agencies - known as nationally [...]

The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association is urging the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board not to alter its Rule G-14 on reports of sales or purchases to require broker-dealers to [...]

The collapse of the roughly $330 billion auction-rate securities market this year was fueled by a lack of transparency and may have been avoided if investors had a comprehensive source [...]

The Securities and Exchange Commission announced two new deputy enforcement directors yesterday, as part of a plan to bolster the commission's top management. Scott Friestad, an associate director of the [...]

WASHINGTON -- A group of state insurance regulators next month will begin providing substitute credit ratings for some of the municipal bonds held by insurers, to prevent a possible sell-off [...]

WASHINGTON -- Default rates in the tax-exempt municipal market are on pace to jump significantly this year, particularly in the housing sector which has been hit by the credit crunch, [...]

The Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday announced the appointments of Rosalind Tyson and Marc Fagel as the directors of its Los Angeles and San Francisco regional offices, respectively. Tyson, who [...]

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board announced yesterday that it will conduct three seminars on the testing and implementation of the New Issue Information Dissemination System, or NIIDS, next month. The [...]

Former Securities and Exchange Commissioner Annette Nazareth yesterday said that any overhaul of the financial regulatory system should not eliminate the SEC because it plays an important and effective role [...]

First Southwest Co. agreed to pay $150,000 to the Securities and Exchange Commission to settle charges that it engaged in undisclosed auction-rate securities practices that may have affected investors' returns. [...]

WASHINGTON -- The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board is proposing a centralized system for the collection and dissemination of critical market information about variable-rate demand obligations that would increase the amount [...]

The Brazos Higher Education Service Corp. and NorthStar Education Finance Inc., two of the largest nonprofit lenders that ceased providing loans through the Federal Family Education Loan program, announced yesterday [...]

WASHINGTON -- Student loan lenders squeezed by the credit crunch expressed mixed views yesterday about a proposal in which the Department of Education will advance lenders money on a short-term [...]

The Education Department was expected to meet with a large group of student loan lenders yesterday to unveil the terms under which the department will purchase their loans using new [...]

A federal judge in Pennsylvania has set an Oct. 6 criminal trial date for Robert Bradbury, the former head of the defunct underwriter Dolphin & Bradbury, for allegedly defrauding four [...]

WASHINGTON -- The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority has censured and fined Piper Jaffray & Co. $25,000 and forced it to disgorge $260,157 in profits for two municipal securities transactions it [...]

MIAMI BEACH, Fla. -- The National Federation of Municipal Analysts presented three awards Thursday night to two municipal market participants and a constituent society for meritorious service and contributions to [...]

MIAMI BEACH, Fla. -- A number of analysts are concerned about the possible unintended consequences of rushing to 'harmonize' the rating agencies' municipal and global rating scales, and are calling [...]

MIAMI BEACH -- It is unreasonable to expect state and local governments to file material event notices when the ratings on their bonds are downgraded because the ratings of the [...]

WASHINGTON -- President Bush plans to nominate Washington University Law School professor Troy Paredes to the Securities and Exchange Commission to replace Paul Atkins, a Republican commissioner who announced Monday [...]

WASHINGTON -- President Bush is expected to sign new legislation as early as today that will allow the Department of Education to temporarily purchase loans held by student loan lenders, [...]

Securities and Exchange Commissioner Paul Atkins announced yesterday that he intends to leave the SEC following the end of his term later this year. A Republican who was first appointed [...]

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board yesterday announced the hiring of Jennifer Galloway to the newly created position of chief communications officer. She will oversee corporate and media communications functions and [...]

WASHINGTON -- The Securities and Exchange Commission staff is considering whether to remove any explicit references to 'nationally recognized statistical rating organizations' from its money market fund and other rules, [...]

WASHINGTON -- The Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday filed securities fraud and related charges against Birmingham Mayor Larry Langford, Alabama bond dealer William Blount and his firm Blount Parrish & [...]

WASHINGTON -- Arkansas and a few other states are responding to a looming student-loan lending crisis by considering loaning bond-issuing authorities money to make loans to students for the coming [...]

The Governmental Accounting Standards Board has added a review of public-private partnerships to its so-called technical agenda, marking the first step toward establishing new accounting and reporting standards for state [...]

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority yesterday asked for public comments on a proposed rule change that would require registered firms to report all allegations of sales practice violations against individual [...]

The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association has launched an industry-wide, investor-led task force to examine the credit rating agencies and make recommendations on ratings, the rating process, and the [...]

WASHINGTON -- Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Christopher Cox described soon-to-be-proposed rules for boosting rating agency accountability, transparency, and competition yesterday, while members of the Senate Banking Committee gave representatives [...]

It does not make sense for the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board to invest resources in building a proposed centralized system for the collection and dissemination of critical market information from [...]

WASHINGTON -- The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board, which collects vast amounts of municipal securities trade and disclosure data, plans to study what the data means for the market with an [...]

Several issuers, analysts and broker-dealers last week praised Moody's Investors Service plan to offer global-equivalent ratings for municipal credits on a voluntary basis beginning next month, arguing that the change [...]

Rep. Paul Kanjorski, D-Pa., introduced legislation yesterday that would create a federal insurance adviser within the Treasury Department to provide advice and expertise on insurance regulation to the administration and [...]

WASHINGTON -- The Securities and Exchange Commission plans to propose a long-awaited rule change next month that would require municipal issuers to file secondary market disclosures with the Municipal Securities [...]

Senate Banking Committee chairman Christopher Dodd yesterday warned there is a looming student-loan lending crisis, but said Congress could help prevent it by urging federal officials to quickly provide lenders [...]

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board is asking for public comment on whether its Rule G-14 on reports of sales or purchases should be revised to require broker-dealers to report municipal [...]