Mandating Disclosure in Municipal Securities Issues: Proposed New York Legislation

This article surveys the existing mechanisims (primarily stemming from federal law) resulting in financial disclosure in connection with the offering and sale to the public of securities of New York municipal issuers. It also describes and compares alternative models for regimes of municipal issuer financial disclosure, such as the MFOA Guidelines, the federal Williams Bill and Industrial Bond Act and New York's Disclosure Proposals. The article ultimately concludes that although the isolated purpose of protecting investors in a municipal securities market that is largely national could most effectively be pursued by the imposition of uniform disclosure requirements through federal law, the Disclosure Proposals are not demonstrably inadequate to this purpose, and the intrustion into the affiars of the state and local governments of New York that would accompany the federal law approach makes the enactment of the Disclosure Proposals a more attractive alternative.