The North American Securities Administrators Association said that several of its members have been conducting investigations involving auction-rate securities and are coordinating their efforts to help investors who cannot access funds that their brokers placed in these products.

Karen Tyler, NASAA president and North Dakota Securities Commissioner said state securities regulators have been responding to auction-rate securities-related complaints and have had investigations underway since late February. The investigations are being conducted by individual jurisdictions through an ARS Task Force chaired by Bryan Lantagne, director of the Massachusetts Securities Division. Task force members include state securities regulators from Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Massachusetts, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Texas and Washington.

The state investigations center on sales practices and supervisory issues related to auction-rate securities. “Our focus is to determine what conduct took place at the point of sale – what was potentially misrepresented and omitted – and our goal is securing for investors access to their cash as requested,” Tyler said. “If the product was represented to be a cash equivalent going in, it must be treated as a cash equivalent coming out.”