Legislation aimed at establishing uniform federal law for electronic commerce and electronic signatures and addressing some concerns of the mutual fund industry, has advanced in Congress.

Olin is campaigning for a proxy vote that would fire Alliance Capital Management of New York as advisor to the Austria Fund, according to an SEC filing.

The Saudi Arabian government's recent decision to allow foreigners to invest in the Saudi stock market through mutual funds probably will not have a lot of U.S. fund companies jumping at the chance to do business there, some industry analysts said.

The fact that retail funds may be sold in variable annuity sub-accounts in the form of funds of funds, has prompted some insurers to seek to include retail funds in other annuities.

CHICAGO - The annuity industry is expecting to receive a formal statement soon from the Internal Revenue Service as to whether partial 1035 exchanges are allowable.

Broker/dealers will be able to have their representatives collect asset-based fees rather than commissions without facing added regulation under a rule proposed by the SEC. If adopted, the new rule will allow registered reps to offer wrap accounts and some other products for which they receive a fee based on assets under management, without being subject to the Investment Advisers Act, the SEC said in a statement.

BOSTON - The SEC's fact-finding examinations of the securities execution practices of mutual funds are unlikely to result in a public report, said Edward A. Ryan, Jr., assistant district administrator for regulation in the SEC's Boston office. It is unclear how the SEC will use the data gathered from the exams, he said. The SEC could issue a statement discussing execution practices or it could propose a rule, he said.

A NASD Regulation proposal to prohibit broker/dealers from paying their registered representatives more for selling the broker/dealer's own mutual funds than for selling outside funds has run into opposition from trade groups representing the securities and mutual fund industries.

If the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999 is enacted, mutual fund companies will buy insurance and banking companies while at the same time becoming acquisition targets of those same firms, industry consultants say. The bill would spur a race to offer clients a wide array of investment products, they say.

A handful of mutual funds that invest in the securities of Taiwanese companies were slow to respond after an earthquake forced the closing of the Taiwan stock market for a week, said Paul Roye, director of the SEC's division of investment management.

WASHINGTON - The SEC will continue to pay attention to mutual fund advertising, but it is potential scrutiny of fund ads by plaintiffs' lawyers that is giving some industry participants pause.

WASHINGTON - If the test for success for new regulations is that they contain a little something to annoy just about everyone, the SEC staff has hit a home run with the rules it has proposed for mutual fund directors.

It was not a resounding victory for those who want to job hop, but top executives who formerly worked at State Street Global Advisors of Boston have been allowed to join a competitor despite a non-compete agreement SSgA contends prohibited the move.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is proposing a new rule that would formally permit mutual fund companies to invest in repurchase agreements (repo's) and pre-refunded bonds (pre-re's). Since the early 1980's, the SEC has not taken an official position but has informally viewed repo's and pre-re's as collateralized investments. It has done this by responding with so-called no-action letters to requests from fund companies to invest in repos and pre-re's.

Five independent fund trustees have won a small victory in a lawsuit originally filed against them as well as Investment Adviser's, Inc., the mutual fund adviser in Minneapolis, Minn., and the IAI Value Fund. Investment Adviser's is a subsidiary of Lloyds TSB of London.

Independent mutual fund directors must provide more information about themselves and, in some cases, their families but also stand to receive valuable protection if the SEC eventually adopts new and revised rules and guidelines that the agency proposed last week.

A nasty proxy fight should draw closer to a conclusion Friday when the shareholders of the closed-end Portugal Fund vote on a series of proposals which could convert the fund to an open-end structure and give closed-end fund activist Ronald Olin a seat on the fund's board of directors.

Auditors of mutual funds may shortly have new guidelines for when personal investments in mutual funds are permissible.

The former chief investment officer for Mitchell Hutchins Asset Management of New York has agreed to pay $10,000 to settle SEC charges that she failed adequately to supervise a portfolio manager's investment and securities pricing practices.

Charles F. Parisi, a California financial services executive, allegedly worked with his brother and a colleague to dupe fund board members, insurance companies and portfolio managers about Parisi's troubled past and conceal Parisi's role in a firm which managed a trust used in variable annuities, the SEC alleged last week.