Law and regulation

A year into its existence, the size, knowledge and dedication of the SEC's special asset management enforcement unit is going to spell “trouble with a capital T’’ for fund managers of all stripes, according to experts at the final general session of the 2011 Investment Company Institute Mutual Funds and Investment Management Conference.

Robert M. Jaffe has been ordered to pay $1.1 million plus interest to Turbo Investors LLC.

The Financial Planning Coalition has called on Congress to support the Securities and Exchange Commission in establishing a fiduciary standard of care for broker-dealers.

The basic roles and responsibilities of brokers, financial advisors and asset managers are in the early stages of what's sure to be a dramatic transition and the brokers and firms that are most adapt at adding new tools and technology will be the ones to prosper, according to a new report from Boston-based financial services consulting firm Financial Research Corp.

Ahmass L. Fakahany was awarded $1.2 million by a FINRA arbitration panel after he brought a claim seeking more than $70 million from his former employer.

Eileen Rominger, in her first appearance as the SEC's director of investment management division before a gathering of members of the mutual fund industry’s largest trade group, said that compliance with existing and forthcoming rules as well as robust regulation of these is essential to achieving and maintaining the trust and confidence of investors.

The establishment of a fiduciary standard that applies to how broker-dealers should care for their customers is not likely to come until after the one-year anniversary date of passage of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act that required it.

The special inspector general for Tarp will wrap up his two-year-plus tour on Wednesday, and he has nothing good to say about Treasury's implementation of the $700 billion bailout.

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority won’t force investment advisers to meet the same rules as broker-dealers, according to FINRA’s chairman and chief executive officer Richard Ketchum.

A retired American Airlines pilot is set to recoup his retirement savings tied up since 2009 in non-public mortgage funds.

The OCC and Fincen issued a $7 million civil money penalty against Pacific National Bank of Miami for Bank Secrecy Act violations and failing to comply with a previous order.

The U.S. Attorney for southern Florida and the FBI on Thursday charged a one-time entrepreneurial whiz kid who already has spent time behind bars for fraud with manipulating the stock of a public company. Using, among Internet-related communication mechanisms, YouTube.

The current SEC inspection and audit process is kind of silly, at best, and a waste of resources, at worst. FINRA's process, from what I've been told, makes even less sense. But what can we do to improve things?

The SEC is seeking industry comment on a proposal to require broker-dealers to follow the same rules as transfer agents when it comes to finding so-called “lost shareholders.”

Chairman Mary L. Schapiro said Wednesday the SEC should consider making reviews of automated systems used in the exchange of stocks and other investments mandatory. The mandate would be an outgrowth of Automation Review Policies issued a quarter century ago, after the Black Monday crash on Wall Street in 1987.

The more than $113 billion New York City Pension Funds have been granted right of passage by the Securities and Exchange Commission to present a foreclosure request on big bank shareholder ballots.

Dodd-Frank laid out a plan for applying separate supervision for the largest, most complex financial companies. Congress ought to do the same for the simplest and the smallest.

The short-selling fine comes after Southwest was nabbed for improperly soliciting municipal bond business.

Independent financial advisers are warning the Securities and Exchange Commission that the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board’s proposed changes to Rule G-23 contain loopholes that would allow dealer-financial advisers to switch roles and become underwriters in the same muni transactions.

FDIC chairman Sheila Bair received not one but two standing ovations from the ICBA, a week after she was heckled by members of the industry's other main trade group.