Joshua Gallu

Eight former directors overseeing mutual funds for Morgan Keegan & Co. settled, without paying any penalties, U.S. regulatory claims that they allowed assets backed by subprime mortgages to be overvalued as the housing market collapsed in 2007.

Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Mary Jo White is pushing to adopt a rule allowing hedge funds to advertise in a move consumer advocates say could fail to protect unsophisticated investors, according to two people familiar with the matter.

Mary Jo White, the first former prosecutor to serve as chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, has pledged to run a “bold and unrelenting” enforcement program at the agency charged with regulating Wall Street.

Robert Khuzami, who led the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s enforcement division’s pursuit of financial industry wrongdoing related to the subprime crisis, plans to step down as early as next month, three people with knowledge of the matter said.

SEC Chairman Elisse Walter may hire as her top lawyer a former enforcement director from the main U.S. derivatives regulator.

Schapiro, 57, will be replaced as chairman when she steps down on Dec. 14 by Commissioner Elisse Walter, former senior executive vice president at the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, President Obama said in a statement.

SAC Capital Advisors LP is seeking to calm investor concern about founder Steven A. Cohen’s trading in two drug stocks and possible regulatory sanctions after prosecutors for the first time tied Cohen to a specific transaction at the center of an insider-trading investigation.

U.S. senators Jack Reed and Charles Grassley introduced a bill to authorize the Securities and Exchange Commission to impose bigger sanctions after the agency said it didn’t have adequate tools to deter financial fraud.