E. F. Hutton will be allowed to stay in mutual funds.

The Securities and Exchange Commission voted to grant the brokerage firm a permanent exemption from a law that bars firms convicted of criminal misconduct in securities-related matters from managing or operating mutual funds. Hutton pleaded guilty last year to charges that it wrote checks for more than it had in its bank accounts and then covered the overdrafts by writing still more bad checks. The SEC, in granting the exemption, required that any Hutton fund have a majority of independent directors on its board and that each fund’s audit committee be composed solely of those outside directors.