EMMA to provide one-stop shopping for bond info

The SEC has designated the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board’s electronic municipal market access system — or EMMA — as the sole repository in which issuers must file necessary disclosures. "For the first time, millions of individual investors in municipal bonds will have free and instant access to information about their investments, similar to the way they can obtain information about public companies," Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox said in a statement released today. “With liquidity problems of municipal auction rate securities and rating downgrades of municipal bond insurers contributing to the current credit crisis, the disclosure and transparency of the municipal markets have never been more critical.” The SEC had amended a disclosure rule making EMMA the sole nationally recognized municipal securities information repository, beginning July 1. Members of the SEC approved the rule change unanimously. Presently, dealers are unable to underwrite most municipal securities unless the issuers have agreed to file financial documents and notices of material events with other nationally recognized municipal securities information repositories. However, not all issuers have been disclosing their documents to all of the repositories, and their paperwork often has been inconsistently labeled and maintained. That has made it difficult for broker-dealers and investors to check the issuers’ disclosures.