Outlook for 2017 Muni Regulation, Legislation
December 27, 2016 10:58 AM
Lynnette Kelly, executive director of the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board
The MSRB's mandate of protecting investors and issuers "is kind of mom and apple pie so it's hard to disagree with a lot of it," Kelly said about working under a new federal administration.
Michael Decker, managing director and co-head of municipal securities for the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association
If Congress does decide to dedicate some energy to revisiting financial regulation, it may not enact the Financial CHOCIE Act, but the legislation "is an indication of where they might start," Decker said.
Ernesto Lanza, senior counsel with Clark Hill in Washington, D.C.
"I just get worried that [the MSRB and FINRA markup disclosure requirements are] going to be a costly effort that [dealers] are going to have to rebuild five years from now anyway because the entire underlying structure of how things are done is going to change," Lanza said.
Emily Brock, director of the Government Finance Officers Association's federal liaison center
The bill from Rep. Gwen Moore, D-Wis., that would directly regulate issuers' disclosure wasn't "a gigantic surprise and punch to the gut" because of GFOA's knowledge of the recommendations in the SEC's 2012 Report on the Municipal Market, Brock said.
Leo Karwejna, chief compliance officer with The PFM Group
"As compliance officers, we can interpret and say what we believe the [MA] rules say and write policies based on that, but really the more guidance we can get from the regulators themselves, the better the consistency at which we all can deliver the end result," Karwejna said.
Leslie Norwood, managing director and co-head of munis for Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association
Dealers' efforts to come into compliance with the MSRB and FINRA's new requirements that dealers disclose their markups and markdowns on certain transactions by May 14, 2018 will be a "full court press" during 2017, Norwood said.
Susan Gaffney, executive director of the National Association of Municipal Advisors
NAMA will be working to make sure that there are no changes to Dodd-Frank or the SEC's MA Rule that would water down the fiduciary duty for all MAs in 2017, Gaffney said.
