Securities, Securities Fraud | featured news

U.S. securities brokers would be more closely scrutinized by accountants and be subject to stricter rules for how they handle their customers' assets under a plan proposed by federal regulators on Wednesday.

An arbitration panel ordered Citigroup Inc to pay a group of investors $54.1 million for losses from municipal securities funds that cratered between 2007 and 2008, the biggest award yet involving the funds in a long series of legal claims against the bank.

Attorney General Jerry Brown says customers were misled into believing that auction-rate securities were safe. Wells Fargo disputes that, and says it aided customers hit by the collapse of the market.

California today sued investment subsidiaries of Wells Fargo & Co.

Barrett Wissman is the first investment executive to be implicated in an investigation of corruption at the New York state pension fund.