Practice

The Securities and Exchange Commission has begun distributing $321 million to the two million Alliance Capital investors who were harmed by market timing. This first installment is a total of $46 million, distributed to 300,000 investors.

John Hancock Retirement Plan Services has expanded its sales team by 18, hiring eight regional vice presidents and 10 professionals to man its new internal sales desk. This is a 15% increase in John Hancock’s team supporting advisers selling 401(k)s.

Reports that U.S. Sens. Carl Levin's and Charles Grassley's new bill on hedge fund regulation will force funds to publicize the names of clients are untrue, the senators said.

At a time when lawmakers are considering rewriting financial services regulations, even restructuring the whole system, the new Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Mary L. Schapiro is planning to prove her agency’s merit by stepping up enforcement and penalties, The Washington Post reports.

The Federal Reserve is extending a number of liquidity programs set to end on April 30 through Oct. 30 “in light of continuing substantial strains in financial markets.”

Fifty-five percent of the hedge funds in the U.S. are registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission, according to Hedge Fund Research.

The New Jersey Bureau of Securities has barred three former Merrill Lynch brokers for allegedly enabling Millennium Partners to place more than 25,000 market-timing trades. Further, the three—Christopher Chung, Kevin Brunnock and William Savino— must pay $1.15 million in civil penalties.

Mutual fund prospectus provider NewRiver is suing Morningstar for using Internet espionage to steal information from its patent-protected system.

With other safe investments paying so little these days, it's hard to ignore the glowing rates that some insurance companies are guaranteeing on long-term fixed deferred annuities.

Calls for greater oversight of the investment advisory profession continued last week, with key congressional leaders pushing the industry to come up with changes designed to prevent future fraud schemes similar to that of the Madoff case.