The SEC is charging Wells Fargo Securities, formerly known as Wells Fargo Brokerage Services, and former VP Shawn McMurtry for selling complex investments to institutional investors without fully comprehending the investments’ level of sophistication or disclosing all of the risks involved to these clients. To settle the securities charges, Wells…
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second has vacated the convictions of six brokers who were criminally charged in a front-running scam to give day traders privileged information via brokerage firms’ squawk boxes. The case is United States v. Mahaffy. Judge Barrington Parker said that confidence in the jury’s…
Reuters is reporting that sources aware of internal talks taking place at Morgan Stanley (MS) are saying that the financial firm is thinking about shutting down brokerage offices as part of its efforts to increase profit margins in its retail brokerage arm. It also is reportedly considering laying off support…
Clifford Jagodzinski has filed a lawsuit against Morgan Stanley & Co. (MS), Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, and Citigroup (C). He claims that he was fired from his job at Morgan Stanley as a complex risk officer because he reported that an investment adviser was churning accounts and earning tens of…
The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia said that Citigroup (C) and UBS (UBS)cannot preliminarily enjoin Financial Industry Regulatory Authority arbitration over an auction-rate securities offering that did not succeed. The case is UBS Financial Services Inc. v. Carilion Clinic. Carilion is a nonprofit health care and…
Five years after the US Securities and Exchange Commission issued an emergency action to stop the Amerifirst securities fraud, all of the defendants accused of defrauding more than 500 investors-many of them senior citizens-of over $50 million in Texas and Florida have now been sentenced for their crimes. The last…
According to Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Gary Gensler, the customers of Peregrine Financial Group, also called PFG Best, were failed by the system, which neglected to protect them. Peregrine’s owner Russell R. Wasendorf Sr. is accused of embezzling close to $220M and defrauding clients. You can read an earlier…
Accusing The SEC of negligent supervision and failure to act, a number of Stanford investors have filed a putative class action seeking damages from the Commission. In Anderson v. United States, the plaintiffs submitted an amended complaint to the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana earlier this…
According to Reuters, Bernerd Young, a former compliance officer for the Texas-based Stanford Group. Co., contends that the Securities and Exchange Commission’s lack of decision over whether to charge him in R. Allen Stanford’s $7 billion Ponzi scam is not only a denial of his right to due process but…
The former executives of IndyMac Banccorp have consented to settle class-action securities lawsuit related to bank holding company’s collapse when the housing bubble burst. Per the settlement terms, the financial firm’s insurer will pay investors $6.5 million in cash. IndyMac shareholders had gone after ex-CEO Michael Perry and ex-finance officer…