Andrew Ackerman

Moody’s Investors Service is pushing state and local issuers to agree to indemnify and hold it and its officers harmless for any mistakes they might make as a precondition to assigning ratings on municipal bond transactions, market participants said Thursday.

A day after New Jersey settled securities fraud charges with the Securities and Exchange Commission for failing to disclose to bond investors that it was underfunding its two largest pension plans, offering documents for the state's record $2.25 billion short-term tax and revenue anticipation note deal included several pages of disclosures about the woefully underfunded retirement plans.

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board Tuesday said it is contemplating a rule change that would prohibit dealers from underwriting new negotiated or competitive bond issues if they served as the issuer's financial adviser on the transaction.

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority has fined three firms $242,500 for municipal rules violations. They include $150,000 against Raymond James Financial Services for supervisory failures related to so-called 529 college savings plans it sold to clients.

Martin Kanefsky, the former owner and chief executive officer of a Great Neck, N.Y.-based firm that helped municipal issuers secure guaranteed investment contracts for their bond proceeds, pleaded guilty to participating in two separate fraud conspiracies as well as wire fraud, the Justice Department announced Thursday night.

WASHINGTON — The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board is considering temporarily expanding its 15-member board, possibly by two to four members, as it transitions to majority-public membership by Oct. 1 to comply with the new financial regulatory reform law.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is considering holding five field hearings between September and January as part of a nationwide inquiry on the municipal market that is expected to lead to recommendations for statutory and regulatory changes to better protect investors.

The Senate voted 60 to 39 this afternoon to approve sweeping changes to the financial regulatory system designed to address the causes of the 2008 financial crisis.

Federal regulators would spend months, if not years, implementing the sweeping changes to the municipal market that were outlined in the financial regulatory reform legislation finalized by House and Senate negotiators late last week.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is stepping up its enforcement efforts in the municipal securities market for the first time in more than a decade, with a staff of roughly 30 attorneys charged with investigating and trying muni and public pension fund cases.

House conferees debating financial regulatory reform legislation today are expected to vote on amendments that would require the Securities and Exchange Commission to register and regulate municipal financial advisers, replacing Senate language that would give such regulatory authority to the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board.

Dealers are calling for the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board to revise and clarify several aspects of draft interpretive guidance that outlines the steps they must take to ensure the prices they charge customers when buying and selling municipal securities are fair and reasonable.

Municipal issuers are overreacting to recent developments surrounding the compliance program for Build America Bonds, a Treasury official said yesterday in an effort to tamp down ongoing concerns.

With lawmakers from both chambers of Congress set to begin hammering out a single financial regulatory reform bill on Wednesday, one of the most contentious municipal-market issues to be worked out centers on who will regulate non-dealer financial advisers, swap advisers and other market intermediaries.

Internal Revenue Service officials Thursday said that there are no plans to audit up to half of all Build America Bond deals, backing away from remarks they made last week.

Berkshire Hathaway Inc.’s Warren Buffett warned a panel investigating the causes of the financial crisis Wednesday that states and localities may face “terrible” financial distress in the next five to 10 years that in turn could lead some to look to the federal government for bailouts.

As the two chambers of Congress begin to hammer out a single financial regulatory reform bill over the next several weeks, industry groups have mixed views about a provision in the Senate bill that would prohibit banks from engaging in proprietary trading but exclude municipal, Treasury and federal agency securities from the ban.

GE Funding Capital Market Services Inc., a subsidiary of General Electric Capital Corp., does not agree with the Securities and Exchange Commission’s plans to file charges against it in connection with an industry-wide investigation of guaranteed investment contracts and derivatives, but is discussing the matter, including a “potential resolution,” with SEC staff.