Compliance

A House oversight committee hearing slated to examine state and municipal debt Thursday devolved into an extended debate about collective bargaining, featuring two sitting governors from opposite ends of the political spectrum.

FINRA fined Jefferies & Co. $1.5 million, ordered the investment bank to repay $425,000 in ill-gotten commissions and fees and suspended a pair of its brokers for failing to disclose additional compensation to institutional clients and other conflicts of interest related to shady sales of auction rate securities between August 2007 and March 2008.

President Obama announced the framework of a plan Wednesday to shrink the deficit $4 trillion over 12 years, and urged House and Senate leaders to appoint teams to negotiate a final bipartisan plan by the end of June.

Success of the Office of Financial Research is critical to curbing TBTF, and if it flops, the next set of solutions may be much harsher than living wills and orderly liquidation authority.

They love him. They loathe him. The Great Recession is over. There's still no sign of the recession's end. Things are only getting better. Things couldn't get worse. That basically sums up the mixed sentiment of most of the financial advisors polled earlier this year by investment management firm Brinker Capital to get a sense of how they feel President Obama and his administration navigated and managed -- or not -- the U.S. economy and government fiscal policy last year and what to expect in 2011.

Wells had sought $36 million from Stifel Nicolaus for the case of improper recruiting.

A FINRA arbitration panel has ordered Citigroup Global Markets to pay $54 million in compensatory and punitive damages to investors in its municipal arbitrage trust funds.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission said they will hold a two-day roundtable at the start of May to help set dates for implementing final rules governing the establishment of new markets for trading credit default and other types of swaps of financial risks.

Independent financial advisers blasted the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board for its draft muni-adviser fiduciary duty rule, saying it targeted independent FAs while virtually exempting underwriters, some of which market themselves as advisers.

Following the extended failure wave and deficit in federal reserves, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. sounded decidedly more hopeful Tuesday about its future.

Until the Investment Adviser Registration Depository is adapted to handle the influx of advisors converting to state registration, not much will get done.

FINRA has fined UBS Financial Services $2.5 million and ordered to pay $8.25 million in restitution for conduct related to the sale of Lehman Brothers Holdings principal protection notes.The fine and restitution is tied to alleged misleading of investors that took place in the sale of the principal protection notes, or PPNs, prior to Lehman Brothers’ Sept. 2008 bankruptcy filing. The PPNs promised a minimum return equal to an investor’s investment, according to FINRA, and were structured as fixed-income security structured products including bonds and options.

FINRA ordered Santander Securities of Puerto Rico to pay $2 million in fines and review its procedures that resulted in customer losses.

UBS will pay up $2.5 million in fines and $8.25 million in restitution for allegedly botched sales of Lehman Brothers principal protection notes.

The nation's stock exchanges and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority Wednesday filed a proposal with the Securities and Exchange Commission to establish a new "limit up-limit down" mechanism that would limit swings in stock prices, during periods of volatility. Under the proposal, trades in listed stocks would have to be executed within a range tied to recent prices for that security.

Wells Fargo Securities will pay $11 million in penalties for misrepresenting—and overcharging for—two complex debt products tied to housing industry performance. The penalties were related to “misconduct in the sale” of two collateralized debt obligations, when the housing market was beginning to swoon in late 2006 and 2007. The conduct by Wachovia Capital Markets, as the unit then was known, violated securities laws in two ways, the SEC said.

An Oregon CPA has pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering with his business, misusing over $44 million of customer funds and causing 91 of his customers to lose $13.7 million.

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board’s draft rule on gifts and gratuities could shut down muni advisers, the municipal market’s largest financial adviser is ­warning.

The nation’s stock exchanges and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority Wednesday filed a proposal with the SEC to establish a new “limit up-limit down” mechanism that would limit swings in stock prices, during periods of volatility.

The nation’s stock exchanges and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority filed a proposal to establish a new “limit up-limit down” mechanism that would limit swings in stock prices, during periods of volatility.