Regulation

Deborah Castellani, a principal and senior fiduciary specialist with Akros Fiduciary in Austin, Texas, responded on LinkedIn to a story about advisory firms sanctioned by the SEC over their compliance programs.

Ernst & Young agreed to pay investors $99 million to settle litigation over its auditing of the bankrupt Lehman Brothers Holdings, according to a filing in federal court in Manhattan.

The U.S. Treasury Department has signed intergovernmental agreements with the Cayman Islands and Costa Rica in an effort to combat offshore tax evasion as part of the implementation of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act.

JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs Group, the world’s biggest trading firms, had their revised capital plans for 2013 cleared by the Federal Reserve on Monday, a month before next year’s submissions are required.

The bank said the U.S. government’s move to add one of its executives as a defendant in a fraud lawsuit suggests retaliation after the bank said it was suspending settlement negotiations.

McGraw Hill Financial’s Standard & Poor’s unit said the U.S. government has broadened the securities covered in its fraud lawsuit against the ratings company so that the case would be unmanageable at trial.

The SEC asked Morgan Stanley about “multiple significant deficiencies” in its financial reporting after the firm corrected accounting errors involving loan cash flows, income taxes and derivatives contracts.

For most of the past year, the status of a uniform fiduciary standard for brokers and investment advisors might be summarized as, “Don’t hold your breath: the SEC has higher priorities.” But an important event last week may serve as an impetus to move this long-simmering issue forward.

Bank of America, the second- biggest U.S. lender, agreed to pay government-backed Freddie Mac $404 million to resolve mortgage-repurchase claims.

Can broker-dealers legally force reps to purchase E&O insurance?