Regulation

The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Montgomery, Ala., said a federal district judge in Atlanta erred in finding that the alleged misrepresentations made by Morgan Keegan brokers about the debt were not material. It sent the case back to the district court for more proceedings.

Joel Blumenschein, a Wisconsin RIA, has resigned from FINRA after settling a disciplinary case alleging he failed to supervise a broker at his firm.

UBS Financial Services Inc. of Puerto Rico and two of its executives have been charged by the SEC with misleading investors and its own financial advisors about the market risks associated with the sales of 23 closed-end mutual funds.

The four firms were fine a total of $9.1 million for not having adequate supervisory systems in place for billions of dollars of sales of leveraged and inverse ETFs.

The aim is to maintain consistency in imposing sanctions for similar offenses.

While by law the Federal Reserve Board must worry about price stability and unemployment, Chairman Ben Bernanke appears to have charted a third mandate for the central bank: financial stability.

The brokerage industry wants simpler language and other modifications.

State regulators may frown on discounting fees, if you are tying them to activity level.

Advisors be forewarned: your small business clients are more likely to be audited next year. The IRS is beefing up its ranks of auditors and doing more audits.

To become the industry’s SRO, FINRA estimates it will cost roughly 15 times less in start-up costs than estimates in a study commissioned by the Financial Planning Coalition, which includes CFP Board, FPA and NAPFA.