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Contact: Jennifer A. Galloway, Chief Communications Officer
       202-838-1500
       jgalloway@msrb.org

MSRB ESTABLISHES ADVERTISING RULE FOR MUNICIPAL ADVISORS AND ENHANCES DEALER ADVERTISING RULE

Washington, DC – The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board (MSRB) today received approval from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to establish a new advertising rule for municipal advisors and to enhance the MSRB’s existing advertising rule for municipal securities dealers. To assist municipal advisors in complying with MSRB Rule G-40, the MSRB will provide guidance in advance of the effective date of February 7, 2019. Read the approval notice.

“Preventing misleading advertisements is an important component of a comprehensive regulatory framework for financial services professionals,” said MSRB President and Chief Executive Officer Lynnette Kelly. “The implementation of the new advertising rule is an important piece of the MSRB’s foundational work to create standards of fair practice for municipal advisors. We took this opportunity to revisit and enhance our long-standing dealer advertising rules to build on our fair practice provisions and to align more closely our advertising rules with rules of other financial regulators.”

The MSRB plans to provide guidance for municipal advisors relating to a municipal advisor’s use of case studies and municipal advisory client lists; Rule G-40’s content standards; and a municipal advisor’s use of social media.

The MSRB is hosting a virtual compliance workshop in a question-and-answer format to discuss key provisions of the advertising rules on Thursday, November 8, 2018 at 3:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. ET. Register for the workshop.


The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board (MSRB) protects and strengthens the municipal bond market, enabling access to capital, economic growth, and societal progress in tens of thousands of communities across the country. The MSRB fulfills this mission by creating trust in our market through informed regulation of dealers and municipal advisors that protects investors, issuers and the public interest; building technology systems that power our market and provide transparency for issuers, institutions, and the investing public; and serving as the steward of market data that empowers better decisions and fuels innovation for the future. The MSRB is a self-regulatory organization governed by a board of directors that has a majority of public members, in addition to representatives of regulated entities. The MSRB is overseen by the Securities and Exchange Commission and Congress.