Law and regulation

The Securities and Exchange Commission has named Andrew Bowden as Deputy Director of the agency's Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations (OCIE).

President Obama will likely win a second presidential term in November, but the election's outcome for policy and investing will likely not be as decisive, according to a research report released Wednesday by UBS Wealth Management Americas.

As efforts to apply stricter fiduciary and disclosure requirements on broker-dealers slow, the Institute for the Fiduciary Standard, a one-year-old think tank that advocates for uniformity, met with Mary Schapiro, the Chairman of the SEC, to make its case.

With an eye on extending a fiduciary standard to all, the Institute for the Fiduciary Standard sent this declaration.

The Financial Services Authority has fined BlackRock Investment Management (UK) Limited £9,533,100 (US$15.2 million) for failing to adequately protect its clients’ money market deposits and for failing to have controls in place to protect its money market deposits.

Even with Wall Street and consumer advocates allied in pushing for it, a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission proposal to raise standards for brokers advising retail investors has run aground.

Theresa Hamacher was named to her current position as president of NICSA (the National Investment Company Service Association) in March 2008.

There's no rest or relaxation for operations managers, as fund firms adjust to life in an era of worldwide financial reform.

Artio Global Investment Funds last month decided to liquidate four equity funds.

The SEC has obtained a $1.1 million settlement from Portland, Ore., based planner Christopher Keil Hicks and two of his companies on charges they failed to disclose a revenue-sharing agreement and other conflicts with his clients.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has settled an administrative proceeding against two Portland, Oregon-based investment advisory firms regarding their failure to disclose a revenue-sharing agreement and other potential conflicts of interest to clients.

The SEC filed a cease-and-desist order against noted investment advisor and radio personality Ray Lucia, alleging a series of misleading statements in retirement-strategy seminars plugging Lucia's "buckets of money" strategy.

Stephen Luparello, vice chairman at the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, is leaving after more than 16 years to take a job at a Washington law firm, the brokerage industry's self-regulator said in a statement.

Despite improved efficiencies and reduced costs, the increased complexity of service provider arrangements has made it more difficult for plan sponsors and ERISA fiduciaries to understand how and how much compensation should be paid to service providers.

In a nod to the competitive pricing pressure roiling the financial services industry, Advisor Group, one of the largest independent broker-dealer networks in the nation, has eliminated, or drastically reduced, the mutual fund fees it was charging to clients of its financial advisors.

After more than a year of battling it out in Washington, D.C., and around the country, SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro called off her proposed second round of reform for money market mutual funds.

Many Wall Street experts think that the JOBS Act will fundamentally change the hedge fund industry. But will it lead to the consolidation of existing funds and the creation of others?

Programs to strengthen bank liquidity, facilitate credit and buy mortgages were good moves, though it is hard to say how much worse things would have been in their absence, Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke said at the Jackson Hole summit.

Romney wants to make it easier for Congress to veto the proposals from regulators, and he vows to put a cap on new regulations. Both plans could have a big impact on financial regulation.

Our legal analyst explores one state's new rules on employment agreements.