Regulation

NEW YORK -- Investors tend to stay quiet about financial products they don't understand as long as the profits keep coming in, but when the tide goes out and profits fall, they want answers.

After consenting to a $40 million fine by the Securities and Exchange Commission for inflating the value of mortgage-backed securities in its Ultra Short Opportunities Fund, Evergreen Investment Management is now being investigated by the Massachusetts Securities Division for valuations in another mutual fund and a variable annuity.

The U.S. House of Representatives has reintroduced a 401(k) fee disclosure bill, the fifth such bill to be considered by Congress.

The U.S. House of Representatives has introduced the Retirement Security Needs Lifetime Pay Act, designed to encourage Americans to invest lifetime income annuities through tax breaks.

The White House’s earlier plan to merge many of the regulators overseeing the financial services industry is likely to be scrapped, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Thanks to shady money managers like Bernie Madoff who ruined it for everyone, the lucrative and surreptitious heydays of hedge funds may be gone for good.

A Connecticut bill that would have imposed transparency and licensing requirements on hedge funds failed to be signed into law Wednesday when the House of Representatives ran out of time to vote on the measure.

Although the Securities and Exchange Commission is not requiring fund companies to begin producing summary prospectuses until Jan. 1, some fund companies, including the Guinness Atkinson Funds, have already started to equip investors with the plain English, four-page documents.

The Securities and Exchange Commission announced the members of its newly created Investor Advisory Committee. The committee’s mission is to give investors a greater voice in the regulator’s work.The 15-member panel will advise the Commission about matters concerning investors in the securities markets; provide investor perspective on current, non-enforcement regulatory issues; and be a source of information and recommendations to the Commission concerning its regulatory programs from the point of view of investors. The committee will be co-chaired by Richard “Mac” Hisey, president of AARP Financial and AARP Funds, and Hye-Won Choi, senior vice president and head of corporate governance for TIAA-CREF.

Citi has launched a free Fund Governance Portal for its regulatory administration services clients.