REIT Manager W.P. Carey & Co has reached a $30M settlement agreement with the SEC over antifraud charges. According to the SEC, W.P. Carey, its ex-CFO John J. Park, and its former chief accounting officer Claude Fernandez paid $10 million in undisclosed compensation to a brokerage firm that sold real…
Wood Rivers Partners LP Founder John Whittier has been ordered to serve 36 months in federal prison. The former hedge fund manager pled guilty to charges that he defrauded investors of about $88 million over a two-year-period. Whittier admitted to deceiving investor clients and making them think that he would…
The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York has sentenced former Morgan Stanley Associate Randi Collotta and her husband, an attorney, to home confinement and ordered them to pay more than $10,000 in fines, plus a forfeiture, for their alleged roles in a large insider trading scheme…
The Securities and Exchange Commission and U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York have filed cases accusing a former MetLife employee of what is perhaps a new low in securities fraud: Misappropriation of funds from the widow of a victim of the September 11 terrorist attack on the…
The Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Justice have separately filed charges against a number of people for their alleged involvement in a $12 million stock-loan fraud scam. The criminal case involves charges filed for securities fraud conspiracy and other charges against stock-loan traders at Janney Montgomery Scott…
In the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, a jury issued its verdict in the “squawk box” front running case. Seven people were acquitted of securities fraud, while Timothy O’Connell, a former Merrill Lynch & Co. stockbroker was found guilty of making false statements and of…
The U.S. Treasury Secretary announced the second stage of its “capital markets competitiveness plan” devoted to efforts to “modernize the structure” of the regulatory system for all U.S. financial services providers. The announcement was made before the New York Stock Exchange’s conference on deals and deal-making, hosted by the Wall…
According to reports, the SEC asked the Justice Department’s Office of the Solicitor General to file an amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief to U.S. Supreme Court in support of the Enron investors’ position in a seminal case involving “scheme liability” under a key provision of the federal securities…
A U.S. District Court in Indiana entered a permanent injunction against several defendants charged by the SEC over their alleged involvement in a $32 million prime bank scheme. They were also ordered to pay $14 million in disgorgement, plus other sanctions The SEC issued a release saying these defendants, including…
Following the 2001 merger of AOL and Time Warner the stock price of the combined company, AOLTW, went into a year-and-a-half decline, and numerous shareholder class action securities fraud suits were filed. The various class actions were consolidated in a federal court in New York. If the case is soon…