Law and regulation

Longleaf Partners is flipping the placard on its Global Fund from “Closed” to “Open”. The fund originally launched on December 31, 2012.

The Bureau described the use of various senior designations as “extremely confusing for consumers,” noting that more than 50 different such designations are currently used to sell a wide variety of financial and insurance products.

"Once it is released it's going to be attacked. It's already being attacked, even though nobody really knows exactly what the rule will be," Ron Rhoades told reporters during a conference call on Thursday.

UBS Global Asset Management (Americas) is liquidating its Money Market Fund in June.

Financial advisor candidates will need to pay more to take securities licensing exams starting June 1, the North American Securities Administrators Association announced.

Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., introduced a bill Wednesday that would establish a tax on the trading of stocks and other financial products.

Mary Jo White, the first former prosecutor to serve as chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, has pledged to run a “bold and unrelenting” enforcement program at the agency charged with regulating Wall Street.

Former MF Global Inc. broker Evan Brent Dooley was sentenced to five years in prison for making unlawful unauthorized trades that caused the now-defunct futures firm to lose more than $141 million in 2008.

The Vanguard Group is swapping target benchmarks for nine of its funds.

Securities and Exchange Commission commissioners and panelists at a roundtable Tuesday wrestled with how to improve the transparency of municipal bond trading and prices, particularly for retail investors.

The Nationwide Fund (NWFAX) is firing two sub-advisors and hiring another one to take their place.

An enforcement action from the Securities & Exchange Commission is a timely reminder to advisors to disclose any financial benefits their firm may receive from the broker-dealer it recommends to clients.

Montpelier, VT-based Sentinel Investments has liquidated its Sentinel Mid Cap II (SYVCX) Fund and transferred all of the fund’s assets into the Sentinel Mid Cap Fund (SNTNX), effective April 12.

FINRA fined Merrill $1.05 million and ordered the firm to pay more than $323,000 in restitution for over 12,000 trades executed on its ML BondMarket platform.

New rules to reduce risk in money-market mutual funds will be proposed in the next two months by the Securities and Exchange Commission, which won’t be slowed by a leadership change, a commissioner said.

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority fined a firm $37,500 for trade and books and records violations, and a broker $5,000, giving him a four-month suspension, for telling a customer he redeemed bonds rather than sold them without the customer's permission.

Companies that submitted initial resolution plans last year to the Fed and FDIC under Dodd-Frank must detail in their second drafts how they would address impediments to a wind-down and follow the series of steps required for bankruptcy.

Richard Weil, chief executive officer at Janus Capital Group had his compensation reduced 19% to $4.98 million in 2012 as investors withdrew $12.1 billion from the firm.

After Fidelity warned that a fiduciary standard could have harmful ramifications, one reader has responded that "Wall Street is unleashing its attack dogs" to try to stop important new guidelines.

Average expense ratios continued their precipitous decline during 2012 much to the delight of mutual fund investors, according to an annual Investment Company Institute report on fund expenses and fees.