On August 24, the SEC announced settled administrative actions against 71 state and local issuers arising from $3.7 trillion in municipal securities offerings.  The Commission alleged the issuers made false statements claiming they had complied with their continuing disclosure obligations under prior debt issues from 2011-2014.  Each settled action imposed a cease-and-desist order and compliance undertakings.

The settlements appear to be the last leg of the Commission’s Municipal Continuing Disclosure Cooperation (“MCDC”) initiative, under which the SEC offered relatively lenient settlement terms for municipal market participants which self-reported violations.  The SEC first announced its MCDC initiative in late 2014, here.

The Agency brought two waves of settled actions against underwriters on June 18, 2015 and September 30, 2015, here and here.

The SEC has brought actions against 143 municipal issuers so far.

The news release is here.

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