Law and regulation

While Senate leaders said they would like to complete a vote on regulatory reform legislation this week, that goal is looking increasingly unrealistic.

Recent revelations such as those involving Goldman Sachs demonstrate that when it comes to investing, many commercial banks, pension funds, endowments and other institutions are not sophisticated.

A FINRA panel granted Stifel more than $900,000 in attorney’s fees and denied all of Wachovia’s claims in a bitterly disputed raiding case.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. will take another stab at imposing checks on securitization. The agency is expected to issue another proposal that would restrict its safe harbor for securitized assets, five months after its first attempt, during which the Securities and Exchange Commission weighed in with a plan of its own.

In the aftermath of the global recession, regulators from developed nations are working with financial industry leaders to build a new foundation for a more balanced global economy less susceptible to worldwide crises.

Donohue: ‘We are moving quickly.’

Like it or not, and most large banks don't, the Volcker Rule to ban proprietary trading is now all but certain to be enacted in regulatory reform.

WASHINGTON - Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Mary Schapiro today said the SEC is embarking on a nationwide inquiry into municipal securities that will lead to specific recommendations for changes to laws and regulations to better protect investors and the market.

FINRA said Thursday that it has ordered Los Angeles-based Westpark Capital to pay $400,000 for supervisory system failures, and has suspended two officers for failing to supervise brokers who churned customer accounts and committed other violations.

Macaskill: "We didn't really understand what we owned."

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority is preparing to take enforcement action against certain firms for selling municipal bonds to retail customers without disclosing material information, including that the bonds’ credit ratings had been spiraling downward, a FINRA official said Thursday.

Loan-level data about the mortgages pooled in those MBS was available to investors in Abacus and other such deals throughout the frothy heyday of CDOs

Though it was clear from the start that a Republican alternative on the consumer bureau was going to fail, GOP lawmakers dragged out the debate rather than allowing the measure to be voted on and moving on to some of the roughly 140 other amendments still to be considered.

WASHINGTON - Despite the enormous weight of proposed regulations bearing down on the financial services industry, mutual funds are taking the issue in stride, focusing on their core strengths of transparency, diversity, customer service - and solutions.

In what could be a first of it’s kind action in the municipal bond market, the Internal Revenue Service has suspended tax-exempt bond attorney Michael W. McCall for at least 24 months from practicing before it for writing a false tax opinion.

In joint letter to legislators, trade associations ask that insurers be excluded from resolution funding.associations

Community bankers are close to winning a key change to the Senate regulatory reform bill that would require the government to base deposit insurance rates on assets instead of domestic deposits.

It is not often one hears someone nicknamed “Wild” Bill exhorting patience.

Bankers may be unable to stop a tax if it does get added to the legislation because Democrats view it as a way to ensure the reform bill saves the government money and Republicans consider it politically risky to oppose.

Large banks have repeatedly prevailed in battles to preserve federal preemption in Congress and the courts, but that victory string is likely to be broken by the regulatory reform bill being debated in the Senate this week.