The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has filed charges against California Attorney Richard Weed, Coleman Flaherty, and Thomas Brazil. The regulator contends that Weed facilitated a pump and dump scam involving CitySide Tickets Inc. stock that allowed Flaherty and Brazil to get millions of supposedly unrestricted shares. Investors were barraged…
Earlier this month, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission put out a Risk Alert reminding brokerage firms about their duties when they take part in unregistered transactions for customers. The guidance came, along with the announcement that the agency had filed an enforcement action against former and current E*TRADE Financial…
According to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the agency filed a record number of enforcement actions in 2014. Concluding the fiscal year on September 30, the regulator announced that it filed 755 SEC enforcement actions and obtained orders of $4.16 billion in disgorgement and penalties. Last year, the agency…
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has taken action to bar Paul Marshall, an ex-investment adviser and broker from the industry. Marshall is accused of misappropriating $2M in client assets. Last year, the SEC charged him and his related investment advisers, Bridge Securities and Bridge Equity Inc., with fraud. The…
Former Ameriprise Adviser Ordered to Jail, Must Pay $3M Restitution Oscar Donald Overbey Jr., an ex-Ameriprise Financial Services (AMP) financial adviser, must pay back the $3 million he allegedly stole from investors while operating a Ponzi scam. The 47-year-old has been sentenced to three and a half years behind bars.…
The SEC is charging Dennis Wright, an ex-Axa Advisors broker, with operating a Ponzi scam for 14 years and bilking customers of $1.5 million. According to the regulator, from 1998 and into 2012, Wright allegedly persuaded at least 28 customers to take money out of Axa variable annuity accounts under…
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has approved a Financial Industry Regulatory Authority Inc. proposal to up the pay for arbitrators. The rule change will increase how much it will cost to file securities arbitration claims, as well as processing fees, surcharge, and hearing session fees for bigger cases. The…
Whistleblower to Get Over $30M Award in SEC Case In its largest whistleblower award yet, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission will pay a bounty of over $30 million to an informant. Seeing that a whistleblower may be entitled to 10-30% of the amount recovered under the Dodd-Frank program, if…
Trendon T. Shavers, who is accused of operating a Texas Ponzi scam involving a Bitcoin scheme he operated from his residence must pay more than $40.4 million. The SEC filed a securities fraud case against him and his company Bitcoin Savings & Trust last year and sought disgorgement. According to…
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority has issued an enforcement action charging Feltl & Company for not notifying certain customers of the suitability and risks involving certain penny-stock transactions, as well as for failing to issue customer account statements showing each penny stock’s market value. The brokerage firm is based in…