Compliance

At the outset, the U.S. Supreme Court's latest ruling against the Securities and Exchange Commission-that there is a five-year limit on bringing fraud claims- may sound like a victory for mutual funds and their advisors.

Norm Champ has been on the job as Director of the Division of Investment Management at the Securities and Exchange Commission for eight months and a lot of mutual fund executives are nervously waiting for the SEC has in store for the industry in 2013 and beyond.

A year after not-quite-closing the book on one retirement-related lawsuit, Fidelity Investments is once again fighting allegations that it improperly used customers’ money earned in overnight accounts to pay its own operating expenses, Reuters reports.

The SEC and the IRS have met to discuss tax implications if money-market mutual funds were to adopt a floating share price, two people familiar with the talks said.

Jeffrey Rubin, a Florida broker, was barred from the securities industry after more than 30 National Football League players including Terrell Owens lost at least $40 million on an Alabama casino project that went bankrupt.

A Wells Fargo broker has been ordered to pay $650,000 in restitution for allegedly misappropriating client funds.

Sen. Richard Shelby introduced two bills on Tuesday aimed at fixing technical errors in the Dodd-Frank reform law and requiring regulators to complete rigorous economic analysis when crafting new rules.

The industry trade group announced its support for the proposal in a comment letter on FINRA’s new disclosure rules.

Having dodged the fiscal cliff and postponed the debt ceiling deadline, the Nation's leaders decided to let the spending sequesters happen. Will the result be to throw the economy into recession or cause an economic catastrophe? Sam Wardwell of Pioneer Investments doesn't think so.

Many financial advisors and their firms fail to understand and comply with custodial responsibilities to clients, according to the SEC . As a result, the commission has issued a “risk alert” and “advisor bulletin” to remind and educate planners about the importance of complying with custody rule.

“FSI has long supported a uniform fiduciary standard that increases protection for investors without limiting access to financial advice and service for Main Street Americans,” Dale Brown, the institute’s president and chief executive said in a statement Monday.

State Street Global Advisors has appointed Maria Dwyer as chief risk officer, effective immediately.

Regulators levied a $750,000 fine on Ameriprise for alleged wire transfer fraud committed by one of its brokers in 2010.

The Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday called for more information from industry members and other stakeholders about the potential impact of its proposal to apply a uniform fiduciary standard of care to broker-dealers and investment advisors who provide advice to retail customers.

Now that the March 1 deadline for Congress and the White House to reach a deficit-reduction agreement has lapsed, federal agencies must now begin to absorb $85 billion in automatic spending cuts, but for financial advisors, it could be business as usual, at least for the time being.

William Galvin, Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, last week called out Charles Schwab & Co. for recently changing up its customer arbitration agreements by striking its investors' ability to join class action lawsuits.

Should mutual funds be backing off on holdings in gun and armament makers?

When FINRA boss Richard Ketchum suggested the group was pulling back from its effort to regulate RIAs, advisors cheered -- but some observers worried the story isn't over. On Twitter, Investment Advisor Alliance said:  'Pressure is off for now. But what happens when Congress is once again more favorable to FINRA's goal?' …

When it comes to policing the way brokerages and advisors market themselves, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority has turned into RoboCop.

The largest purveyor of money market mutual funds in the United States this month told the Financial Stability Oversight Council that no further reform of such funds is necessary.