On September 30, the SEC issued its second round of mass settled actions over municipal securities disclosure issues, as part of its Municipal Continuing Disclosure Cooperation (“MCDC”) Initiative. In this round, 22 municipal underwriters will undertake remedial measures and pay fines (ranging from $20,000 to $500,000 and totaling $4.12 million) for disclosure violations.
Announced in March of 2014, the MCDC Initiative offered structured settlements for municipal underwriters and issuers who voluntarily “came in from the cold” to self-report failures of new bond issuers to adequately disclosure whether they had been keeping up with their periodic financial-reporting obligations in prior issues. The program had a five-year “look back” and was intended to rapidly bring municipal-market financial disclosures into compliance. Under the program, cooperating self-reporting municipal underwriters agreed to accept sanctions ranging from $20-60,000 per offering (capped at $100,000 to $500,000, depending on size and number of issues involved), cease and desist orders and independent-consultant review of municipal compliance programs.
The SEC’s order granting disqualification waivers lists this round’s Respondents:’33 Act Rel. No. 9956 (September 30, 2015), here. See also Administrative Releases here.
I discussed the first round of settlements here.
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