BP Plc. has consented to settle for $525 million Securities and Exchange Commission allegations that it gave the agency and investors misleading information about the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill. If approved, this would be the third biggest penalty in SEC history. According to the Commission, during the crisis the…
Kweku Adoboli, an ex-UBS (UBS) trader, has been convicted of fraud over bad deals he made at the Swiss Bank that resulted in $2.2 billion in losses. He has been sentenced to 7 years behind bars. Adoboli, who had pled not guilty to the criminal charges, is accused of booking…
In the wake of Securities and Exchange Commission charges accusing Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company of securities law violations, the insurance company has agreed to settle the allegations by paying a $1.625M penalty. The SEC contends that the insurer did not adequately disclose the potential negative impact of a “cap”…
In a record first involving the Federal Deposit Insurance Company suing the auditors of a failed bank, the government agency has filed a lawsuit against Crowe Horwath LLP (CROHORP) and PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP for over $1 billion for their alleged failure to detect the securities fraud perpetuated by Taylor Bean &…
FINRA has filed a temporary cease-and-desist order barring WR Rice Financial Services Inc. and Joel I. Wilson, its owner, from taking part in allegedly fraudulent sales activities and the conversion of assets or funds. The SRO is also filing a securities complaint accusing both the Michigan based-brokerage firm, Wilson, and…
The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California is allowing a securities lawsuit by an investor claiming negligent misrepresentation over allegedly flawed offering documents in bonds to raise money for a private school to proceed. The plaintiff is Lord Abbett Municipal Income Fund Inc. and the defendants are…
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit says that federal sentencing judges who initially withhold restitution in complex or large fraud cases because the amounts are too hard to calculate cannot choose to later open up the case and add that in should the government later come up…
The Securities and Exchange Commission has filed charges against hedge fund manager Walter A. Morales and his Baton Rouge-based firm Commonwealth Advisors with allegedly defrauding investors by concealing the millions of dollars in losses sustained from investments linked to residential mortgage-backed securities during the economic crisis. The SEC wants a…
The California Court of Appeals says that while investor Irene Mastick can proceed with her securities litigation against Oakwood Capital Management LLC, she has to arbitrate her securities claim against TD Ameritrade Inc. Mastick had sued representatives of the two financial firms, along with M.E. Safris & Co. and her…
The CFTC is ordering Morgan Stanley Smith Barney LLC (MS) to pay a civil monetary penalty of $200,000 for alleged supervisory failures related to customer account handling by employees, which is a violation of CFTC regulation 166.3. Its Order maintains that Morgan Stanley did not have adequate supervisory and internal…