Compliance

In what could be a first of it’s kind action in the municipal bond market, the Internal Revenue Service has suspended tax-exempt bond attorney Michael W. McCall for at least 24 months from practicing before it for writing a false tax opinion.

In joint letter to legislators, trade associations ask that insurers be excluded from resolution funding.associations

Community bankers are close to winning a key change to the Senate regulatory reform bill that would require the government to base deposit insurance rates on assets instead of domestic deposits.

It is not often one hears someone nicknamed “Wild” Bill exhorting patience.

Bankers may be unable to stop a tax if it does get added to the legislation because Democrats view it as a way to ensure the reform bill saves the government money and Republicans consider it politically risky to oppose.

Maintaining a competitive environment is critical to the continuing development of new lifetime income solutions for employer-sponsored retirement plans, the SPARK Institute said in a joint letter to the Department of Labor and the Department of Treasury.

Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal recently filed suit against a bank and local money manager who served as custodians for two feeder funds that invested with convicted Ponzi-schemer Bernie Madoff.

Large banks have repeatedly prevailed in battles to preserve federal preemption in Congress and the courts, but that victory string is likely to be broken by the regulatory reform bill being debated in the Senate this week.

The more things change, the more they remain the same. In the early 1980s, the nation faced a serious retirement challenge, with Social Security estimated to have unfunded liabilities of about $6 trillion and worries about whether the Greatest Generation would be able to afford its retirement.

In an ironic twist, the Fed Reserve — one of the most derided regulators for its failure to prevent the financial crisis — may emerge from regulatory reform with its bank supervisory powers intact and authority enhanced.

The banking industry is scrambling to devise a new strategy to weaken the regulatory reform bill after Republicans failed to cut a bipartisan deal before the legislation advanced to the Senate floor Thursday.

The Insured Retirement Institute on Thursday sent a “broad, comprehensive” response to the request for information on lifetime income that the U.S. Departments of Treasury and Labor recently issued.

The SPARK Institute filed a comment letter Thursday on the Employee Benefits Security Administration’s proposed guidance on 401(k) investment advice. SPARK’s concern is Department of Labor’s attempt to define acceptable investment practices and theory, instead of leaving the decision on what type of advice to offer, be it computer- or adviser-based, to plan sponsors and administrators.

WASHINGTON—Although some of the “most profound” proposals in regulatory reform made during the wake of the economic collapse are now not likely to happen, Richard Ketchum, chairman and CEO of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority said Thursday that the financial services industry still has a responsibility to act aggressively at detecting fraud before it’s cleaning up the mess at the end.

Although some of the “most profound” proposals in regulatory reform made during the wake of the economic collapse are now not likely to happen, FINRA's Ketchum said the financial services industry has a responsibility to act aggressively at detecting fraud before it cleans up the mess at the end.

Most of the trades involved a single penny-stock company.

Sen. Kohl applauds DOL, SEC providing more information to employers and investors alike.

Bernie Madoff's legacy is still influencing the regulatory community.

WASHINGTON—The Treasury Department released interim guidance yesterday instructing municipal issuers how to issue four tax-credit bonds as direct-subsidy bonds, as was authorized by a jobs law enacted in March.

The Newsweek correspondent said “Obama is trying to rally populist sentiment against Wall Street."