After 17 months, California Attorney General Bill Lockyer has walked away empty-handed after a state judge ruled that his attempts to control mutual fund disclosure flies in the face of the authority vested in the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The Los Angeles Times reports that Superior Court Judge Loren McMaster dismissed the AG’s action against Edward Jones & Co., which Lockyer launched after he refused to participate in a December 2004 settlement in which the St. Louis-based firm agreed to pay $75 million to end an SEC investigation. At the time, Lockyer called the settlement inadequate and sued Edward Jones under the state’s new securities anti-fraud law. In throwing out the case, McMaster ruled that the AG’s case “conflicts with the federal regulation of information provided in mutual fund prospectuses.” Observers say Lockyer’s suit was an attempt to control information in a prospectus, but a spokesman for the AG’s office told the Times that its intent was to only get a fair settlement.
