Regulation

The Securities and Exchange Commission has created a nearly $32 million fair fund distribution to help current and former customers of Ameriprise Financial Services who were harmed by the company’s failure to disclose revenue sharing payments.

Responding to the Securities and Exchange Commission’s temporary ban on short selling in hopes of helping to stabilize the markets, Vanguard and Bank of America’s Columbia Funds have stopped lending securities to such traders, The Boston Globe reports.

One of the biggest arguments against the $700 billion bailout of Wall Street’s bad debt is that by having the government clean up investment houses’ balance sheets, the same firms that caused the problem might make outsized profits in helping the government assess the debt, the New York Times reports.

The Securities and Exchange Commission issued an enforcement action Tuesday against AmSouth Bank and AmSouth Asset Management for defrauding the AmSouth mutual funds by using a portion of administrative fees that shareholders paid for marketing and other unrelated expenses that should have been paid out of the investment advisor’s coffers. Those expenses included the salary, bonus, benefits and country club membership of the president of the AmSouth Funds.

Minnesota U.S. District Court Judge Paul Magnuson has decided to expedite Ameriprise Financial’s lawsuit against Reserve Funds’ Primary Fund. The court will fast-track the discovery of documents and other supporting information.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is planning its next CCOutreach seminar for Nov. 13 at its Washington headquarters.

The Federal Reserve has moved to ease bank ownership thresholds, allowing private equity firms to acquire larger-sized stakes in banking companies along with board representation.

Expect a pop in equity valuations, increased liquidity and lower trading costs as U.S. and foreign corporations list stocks using International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). That's according to a working paper published by the University Of Chicago Graduate School Of Business.

CHICAGO - In the coming weeks and months, financial officials and members of Congress will be scrambling to revisit a spate of sunsetting tax and accounting laws before the new presidential administration and Congress take over next year.

Global insurance giant AIG sold more than $10.8 billion worth of annuities in the second quarter of 2008—more than any other insurer—and Lehman Brothers’ Neuberger Berman mutual funds managed more than $250 billion.