Compliance

While Wall Street ripped roariously with scandal after scandal in 2002, the fund giants appeared to sit sanguinely on the sidelines. Insiders, on the other hand, know that the mutual fund industry didn't quite get by without a few scrapes of its own.

In a move that has been condemned by the mutual fund industry, The Securities and Exchange Commission last week endorsed a proposal that would force complexes to disclose their portfolio holdings four times each year. Funds currently have to disclose the information twice a year.

The Investment Company Institute has dismissed a Securities and Exchange Commission initiative that would require fund companies to disclose how they vote on proxies, insisting that the proposal would favor political groups and pose a risk to shareholders and fund complexes.

The National Association of Securities Dealers of Washington has won a legal battle against a publisher who uses NASDR data about broker/dealers. A federal court in Florida dismissed a lawsuit brought by the publisher, Edward Siedle, who demanded access to NASDR data, saying NASDR could restrict information that appears on its public disclosure Web site and how that information can be used.

He got the markets running in less than a week after the terrorist attacks of 9/11 and waged the most aggressive reforms in the history of the SEC. In the end, it was his own bravado (wanting to be named to the Cabinet) and impediments to true bottom-line numbers (through his poor choice of chairman of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board and conflict of interest over his previous work for AOL), that took Chairman Harvey Pitt down.

The 401(k) reform bills that have been brewing in Washington for the past year will likely be tabled until the 2003 session of Congress.

Firms Scramble Ahead of SEC Decision to Comply With Law

Proxying fund shareholders is often seen as a necessary evil in order to make significant changes to a fund, or, in some cases, liquidate it.

With shareholder activism and corporate governance such a hot topic lately, MFMN set out to discover what's driving shareholder proxies these days, and what kind of response rates they're getting.

When former President Bill Clinton signed the Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act in April 2000, there was wide speculation that e-signatures would transform not just financial services but e-commerce as well.

Diplomat. Detective. Politician. Strategist. Entertainer. Financier. Referee.

An industry as competitive and highly regulated as the mutual fund industry could not possibly slip one by investors, right?

The bear market, a steep decline in mutual fund and variable annuity sales and the strain of product guarantees, will result in widespread downgrades at life insurance and annuity companies, all of the major ratings agencies have announced,

PALM DESERT, Calif. - There's no question that the Securities and Exchange Commission has left the mutual fund industry a little confused lately.

PALM DESERT, Calif. - Ensuring that fund companies are complying with provisions of new anti-corporate fraud legislation will be at the top of the Securities and Exchange Commission's agenda for regulating fund companies in 2003, an SEC official said late last month.

The Massachusetts Securities Division has charged a Denver broker/dealer with scaring elderly people into abandoning their securities in favor of annuities with outrageous commissions.

PALM DESERT, Calif. - Outdated and risky in this age of accounting scandals plaguing Wall Street. That is how a fund consultant and author described the fund industry's model for reviewing corporate reporting. To stave off future legislation, a new model is needed, the speaker told the 700 fund accountants gathered here last week at the Investment Company Institute's Tax & Accounting Conference.

The backlash against corporate secrecy spilled over into the usually clean mutual fund industry as the Securities and Exchange Commission took a first step last week in requiring mutual funds to disclose their proxy voting policies and votes.

The Securities and Exchange Commission's proposal to require publicly traded companies to reveal their so-called critical accounting policies is a step in the right direction, according to leading fund companies.

Joseph Carrier, vice president and treasurer of the T. Rowe Price Funds, weighed in on a number of subjects concerning the industry during a recent interview with Mutual Fund Market News Associate Editor Chris Frankie. Carrier, chairman of the Investment Company Institute's Accounting/Treasurers Committee, also spoke about some of the topics to be discussed at the ICI 2002 Tax & Accounting Conference in Palm Desert, Calif., this week.