Law and regulation

In an ironic twist, the Fed Reserve — one of the most derided regulators for its failure to prevent the financial crisis — may emerge from regulatory reform with its bank supervisory powers intact and authority enhanced.

The banking industry is scrambling to devise a new strategy to weaken the regulatory reform bill after Republicans failed to cut a bipartisan deal before the legislation advanced to the Senate floor Thursday.

Although some of the “most profound” proposals in regulatory reform made during the wake of the economic collapse are now not likely to happen, FINRA's Ketchum said the financial services industry has a responsibility to act aggressively at detecting fraud before it cleans up the mess at the end.

Most of the trades involved a single penny-stock company.

Sen. Kohl applauds DOL, SEC providing more information to employers and investors alike.

Bernie Madoff's legacy is still influencing the regulatory community.

The Newsweek correspondent said “Obama is trying to rally populist sentiment against Wall Street."

Sen. Scott Brown of Massachusetts says the proposed reforms would treat mutual funds like banking products.

The Treasury Department released interim guidance yesterday instructing municipal issuers how to issue four tax-credit bonds as direct-subsidy bonds, as was authorized by a jobs law enacted in March.

WASHINGTON -- A robust, well-documented oversight process by mutual fund boards can help to keep investor lawsuits at bay, but good documentation is not enough. Experts say boards must also stay on top of a wide range of developments in derivative exposure and potentially misleading advertisements, among other things.

The Securities and Exchange Commission’s Office of Inspector General found that at least 33 SEC employees and contractors used government computers to view pornographic images in the past five years.

The Department of the Treasury is asking primary dealers what impact the SEC’s revisions to Rule 2a-7 will have.

PE manager Onyx Capital Advisors charged with committing fraud against area pension funds

It appears the best way to broker a compromise on a hot-button issue in the regulatory reform bill is to study it. That, at least, is the approach taken in Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd's 1,300-plus-page bill, which includes more than two dozen studies on topics from industrial loan companies to contingent capital to the implementation of the Volcker Rule.

Dodd calls for study on performance information in advertisements.

The regulator fined units of the two banking companies $1.5 million and $275,000 respectively for auction rate securities violations.

Brokers voice concerns at Mutual Fund Directors Forum.

The federal government’s Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission has subpoenaed Moody’s Corp. for allegedly failing to provide requested information.

The Justice Department is seeking to intervene and temporarily halt fact-finding by a group of localities in their class action suit against Wells Fargo & Co. and 15 other banks, broker-dealers and investment brokers for allegedly conspiring to rig bids and fix prices of investment and derivatives contracts in the municipal market.

Despite recent tough talk about problems with the regulatory reform bill, Republicans are unlikely to win significant concessions as the legislation moves to the Senate floor.