Law and regulation

Four bank failures book-ended the country on Friday. Collectively, they had a total of $1.05 billion in assets and are expected to cost the Deposit Insurance Fund $267.6 million.

The former management of a Denver thrift is suing federal regulators over its seizure last month, saying the agencies closed it while it was still a viable institution and arguing it should be reopened.

The regulator said the companies had failed to adequately safeguard non-public customer information.

James Shorris is set to return to the private sector in April after more than seven years in enforcement leadership roles at the organization.

Senate Banking Committee members raised a host of concerns Thursday about the state of the financial services industry as regulators grapple with a mountain of new rules mandated by the Dodd-Frank Act.

Senate Banking Committee Republicans worry Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Mary Schapiro and other regulators are rushing to implement rules mandated by the Dodd-Frank Act without sufficient regard to cost-benefit analyses or public comments.

The sweeping move affected financial planners in 14 states, and is the largest number of sanctions that the CFP Board has issued in three years, Dan Drummond, a CFP Board spokesman said in a telephone interview Wednesday morning.

Just one day after the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board issued a draft rule on muni advisors’ fiduciary duties, market participants are questioning the scope of the rule and whether it would apply to dealer-advisers.

Republicans and Democrats sparred Tuesday over the economic impact of derivatives regulations as the House prepared for a broader fight over the budgets of agencies tasked with writing and enforcing the new rules.

The $3.7 trillion fiscal 2012 budget proposed by President Obama Monday would permanently reinstate an expanded Build America Bond program but at a lower 28% subsidy rate.

Although the estimated costs of the Troubled Asset Relief Program have fallen markedly during the past year, the Obama administration's 2012 fiscal budget said the largest banks that benefited from the bailout should still be taxed to make up any cost to the government.

As a House Judiciary Committee panel meets Monday to hold a hearing on public pensions and the need for state bankruptcy protection, pension and muni bond experts are opposing a recently introduced bill that would prohibit them from issuing tax-exempt bonds unless they subject their pension plans to federal oversight and regulation.

Two deputies were named in the FDIC's Office of Complex Financial Institutions, while three staff positions were announced in the Division of Depositor and Consumer Protection.

Rule-making body wants the SEC to make changes to prevent potential conflict of interest in municipal securities trading.

What’s a wirehouse advisor to do in this uncomfortable situation? And there’s more on the fiduciary standard.

For the second year in a row, enforcement actions set a record, jumping 21% last year, to 2,724, an increase industry representatives attributed to a persistently heightened focus on capital and safety and soundness standards in the wake of the financial crisis.

"We're no closer to an end game than we were before the report," one panelist said Thursday. "Maybe even further away."

A former broker for RBC Capital Markets is set to pay $1.7 million to RBC Capital Markets and his request for $37.8 million in compensatory damages has been denied.

House panel members on Wednesday opposed federal bailouts for municipal governments and were reluctant to provide states with bankruptcy protection, but they seemed to support requiring improved public pension fund disclosure.

A Financial Industry Regulatory Authority Panel ordered Citigroup to pay $6.4 million to a group of investors including investment banking executive D. Theodore Berghorst for municipal arbitrage trust fund losses.