Compliance

WASHINGTON -- A top official with the Labor Department defended the controversial plan to expand the definition of "fiduciary" to cover people providing advice to retirement plans on a commission-based model, a proposal strongly opposed by industry groups representing independent broker-dealers and advisers.

Of the many policy issues surrounding the investment advisor sector, few are more charged than the question of where regulatory authority should properly be housed. And those divergent viewpoints were on full display at the annual advocacy summit hosted by the Financial Services Institute.

A top official with the Labor Department defended the controversial plan to expand the definition of "fiduciary" to cover people providing advice to retirement plans on a commission-based model, a proposal strongly opposed by industry groups representing independent broker-dealers and advisors.

Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Inc. has been fined $1 million for supervisory failures that allowed a Texas broker to run a Ponzi scheme.

Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Inc. has been fined $1 million for supervisory failures that allowed a Texas broker to run a Ponzi scheme.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is warning broker-dealers it will scrutinize the procedures they use to ensure they don't run afoul of the new market access rule when dealing in subaccounts used by disreputable day traders.

The nation's stock exchanges and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority are filing proposals that will trigger halts in trading, marketwide, more quickly, the Securities and Exchange Commission said. The changes are proposed for marketwide "circuit breakers," which key off drops in the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is warning broker-dealers it will scrutinize the procedures they use to ensure they don't run afoul of the new market access rule when dealing in subaccounts used by disreputable day traders.

Community banks oppose capital One Financial Inc.'s proposed $9 billion acquisition of ING Direct USA, saying it would increase systemic risk.

The president's once warm relationship with the largest American banks has been fractured.

Taxpayers Beware: Gifts to charities have come under IRS scrutiny.

Our legal expert explains the ins and outs of setting up a backup plan to service an advisor's clients if he or she is unable to do so.

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority has hit Raymond James & Associates and Raymond James Financial Services Inc. with an order to pay $1.69 million in restitution to more than 15,500 customers who were charged unfair commissions.

A Long Island-based investment advisor repeatedly lied to investors to conceal the fact that his PIPE investment and trading strategy was failing during the financial crisis and stole more than $1 million in client assets to buy personal luxury items including a Lexus, a Mercedes and a Rolex watch, according to the SEC.

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority has hit Raymond James & Associates and Raymond James Financial Services Inc. with an order to pay $1.69 million in restitution to more than 15,500 customers who were charged unfair commissions.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged a San Francisco-area investment advisor with fraud for allegedly lying to clients about how brokerage commission rebates were being used and then providing phony documents to cover up the so-called “soft-dollars” scam during an SEC examination.

Now that the Department of Labor is back at the drawing board trying to determine what should constitute a fiduciary under 1975 ERISA amendments, the industry wants to make at least one point clear: investors should have good choices, regardless of the business model their advisors use.

The advocacy organization representing independent broker-dealers and independent financial advisors will press its policy priorities to lawmakers on Capitol Hill as part of a two-day summit in the nation's capital.

Wall Street firms shouldn't think about complying with the Internal Revenue Service's new rules requiring them to calculate the cost of investors' accounts only as a burdensome operational cost. Instead, they should think of following the new cost-basis reporting rules as a potentially profitable means of retaining and attracing new clients, says a report just issued by research firm Celent.

The nation’s stock exchanges and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority are filing proposals that will trigger halts in trading, market-wide, more quickly, the Securities and Exchange Commission said.