Regulation

After filing over 80 disciplinary actions in the past two years, the National Association of Securities Dealers is tightening its noose on the variable annuities industry. Late last month, the regulator proposed new rules for variable annuity sales that would increase disclosure and make best-practice guidelines mandatory and enforceable.

It's going to be a lot easier to bring products to market in the near future. Or is it?

The hits just keep on coming.

Ever wish you were somebody else? Well, thieves have been making it happen at a more rapid pace, hijacking the identities of mutual fund customers and other patrons of the financial services industry and reeking havoc at an alarming rate.

Putnam Investments last week announced it is improving the fee disclosure in Putnam CollegeAdvantage, the 529 plan it runs in Ohio, and also reducing the plan's annual maintenance fee.

Have you wondered what will become of the rapscallions who are guilty of ripping off mutual fund investors?

Traditionally, bulge-bracket firms have given away research in exchange for trading volume and high trading commissions. The commissions paid for part of the research, while investment-banking fees paid for the rest. Over time, Wall Street firms built up expensive operations, flush with highly paid salespeople and large travel and entertainment budgets.

The corporate makeover at Janus Capital continued last week as CEO Mark Whiston, 42, quit and was replaced by board chairman Steve Scheid, 50.

The $675 million price tag agreed to by Bank of America and FleetBoston to settle charges in the mutual fund scandal was extremely high, but the companies agreed that expeditious handling of the charges was paramount to closing their merger, the vice chairman of BoA said in a recent CNBC interview.

Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce is facing a class-action lawsuit in relation to the market timing scandal battering the mutual fund industry. The suit, filed by New York law firm Milberg Weiss Bershad Hynes & Lerach, claims CIBC facilitated the illegal late trading conducted by MFS and helped defraud investors. It spans from 2001 to 2003. Also named in the suit is Paul Flynn, the former CIBC managing director of equity investment accused of providing financing for hedge funds that engaged in the late trading and timing activities. CIBC has yet to file a statement of defense.