The Securities and Exchange Commission is seeking district court approval of its proposed securities fraud settlement with two ex-Bear Stearns & Co. portfolio managers. The SEC presented its second plea to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York earlier this month. In a letter to the…
FINRA says that Citigroup Inc. subsidiary Citi International Financial Services LLC must pay over $1.2M in restitution, fines, and interest over alleged excessive markdowns and markups on agency and corporate bond transactions and supervisory violations. The financial firm must also pay $648,000 in restitution and interest to over 3,600 clients…
To settle a securities lending lawsuit filed by the AFTRA Retirement Fund, the Investment Committee of the Manhattan and Bronx Surface Transit Operating System, and the Imperial County Employees’ Retirement System, JPMorgan Chase & Co. will pay $150 million. The union pension funds are blaming the financial firm for losses…
According to a report published by Cornerstone Research, there has been a decline not just in the number of securities class action settlements that the courts have approved, but also in the value of the settlements. There were 65 approved class action settlements for $1.4 billion in 2011, which, per…
AXA Advisors LLC will pay a $100,000 fine to settle Financial Industry Regulatory Authority allegations that it delayed too long before firing a broker who was also the mastermind of a Ponzi scam. The financial firm turned in a Letter of Acceptance, Waiver, and Consent prior to there having to…
Batting away criticism that many of the Security and Exchange Commission’s enforcement actions for fiscal year 2011 were actually follow-on administrative proceedings and not new actions, Chairman Mary Schapiro stood by the agency’s record. She also noted that in some instances, follow-ons are key to enforcing federal securities laws. Schapiro…
In a primarily procedural decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has ruled that the Securities and Exchange Commission’s case against Citigroup, which resulted in a proposed $285M securities fred settlement, be stayed pending a joint appeal of U.S. Senior District Judge Jed Rakoff’s ruling that the…
Nearly three years after he was indicted for defrauding investors in a $7.2 billion Ponzi scam involving certificates of deposit that are now worthless, a Houston jury has convicted R. Allen Stanford of 13 of 14 criminal counts, including fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering, conspiracy to commit wire or…
The Securities Investor Protection Corp. is asking the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to reject the SEC’s request for an order that would make it pay back the victim of Texas financier R. Allen Stanford’s $7 Billion Ponzi scam. The brokerage industry-funded nonprofit claims that the Commission…
The Securities and Exchange Commission wants the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York to approve the proposed securities settlements that it reached with Matthew Tannin and Ralph Cioffi, two former Bear Stearns & Co. portfolio managers. The SEC says the deals are “fair, adequate, and reasonable.”…