FINRA issued a regulatory notice informing members of updated guidance on rules governing communications with the public. The update follows a retrospective rule review regarding their effectiveness and efficiency. The guidance comes in the form of additional questions and answers ("Q&Amp;A") on the Advertising Regulation page on FINRA's website. The following topics, among others, are addressed in the updated Q&Amp;A: principal approval; non-promotional communications; social media posts in online interactive electronic forums; filing exclusion for non-material changes to previously filed

The SEC announced fraud charges against an investment advisory firm and two of its executives for selling unsuitable investments to pension funds for police and firefighters, transit workers and other employees. The SEC alleged that Gray Financial Group, the firm's president and co-CEO breached their fiduciary duty by steering public pension fund clients to invest in an alternative investment fund despite their awareness that the investments did not comply with Georgia law. The SEC explained that although Georgia law allows most public pension funds in the state to purchase alternative

The Senate Banking Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs voted in favor of the Financial Regulatory Improvement Act of 2015. The vote of 12 to 10 was split along partisan lines. The Act would implement a wide variety of financial regulatory reforms, and promote greater Congressional oversight of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. Se e: Senator Shelby's (R-LA) Statement; Senator Corker's (R-TN) Statement. Related news: Senator Richard Shelby Releases Draft of Financial Regulatory Reform Bill (with Lofchie Comment) (May 12, 2015).

The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System ("FRB") released a proposal to add certain general obligation state and municipal bonds to the range of assets that qualify as high-quality liquid assets ("HQLA"). The proposed rule would treat investment-grade general obligation U.S. state and municipal bonds as HQLA up to certain levels if they met the same liquidity criteria that apply currently to corporate debt securities. The FRB stated that limits on the amount of a qualifying state or municipality's bonds are based on the specific liquidity characteristics of those bonds.

FINRA released the second podcast in its three-part series on regulatory and sales practice topics for Firm Element Training plans. The podcast addressed two topics that were covered previously in Part 1 of the podcast series: (i) the recently approved MSRB amendments to create professional qualification standards and (ii) the new best-execution rule for municipal transactions. The current podcast discussed the new MSRB rule on supervisory and compliance obligations for municipal advisors, which requires a compliance model that has a "reasonably designed supervisory system complemented by a