LPL Financial Holdings (LPLA) brokers and investment advisers will now be able to offer their clients securities lending services through Goldman Sachs (GS). Under the new arrangement, LPL clients can borrow anywhere from $75,000 to $25 million against the securities held in their accounts. In a press release, Goldman Sachs…
The US Securities and Exchange Commission has awarded two whistleblowers almost $50M and another over $33M in the largest whistleblower awards that the regulator has issued to date. This ups the total of SEC whistleblower awards granted to $262M to 53 individuals in the last six years. According to the…
Fyre Festival Founder Pleads Guilty to Wire Fraud and Must Pay Back Investors Billy McFarland, the founder of the failed Fyre Festival who pleaded guilty to two counts of wire fraud, must may pay back millions of dollars to investors whom he bilked. In Manhattan federal court, McFarland acknowledged that…
The US Securities and Exchange Commission has filed fraud charges against Theranos Inc., its CEO and founder Elizabeth Holmes, and its ex-President Ramesh Balwani. The regulator contends that they engaged in a years-long fraud that raised over $700M from investors. According to the SEC’s complaint, the three of them made…
The attorneys at Shepherd Smith Edward & Kantas are investigating the claims of investors who purchased Strategic Return Notes (“SRNs”). Bank of America and Merrill Lynch created Strategic Return Notes, which are an unsecured promissory note issued by Bank of America. Bank of America has no obligation to and will not make…
The US state of Massachusetts is investigating Wells Fargo Advisors (WFC) over whether the firm engaged in unsuitable recommendations, inappropriate referrals, and other actions related to its sales of certain investment products to customers. The news of the probe comes after Wells Fargo disclosed that it was evaluating whether inappropriate…
When investors placed funds in The Ultra Short Fund (Nasdaq: AULTX), managed by The Asset Management Fund (“AMF”), they believed their funds were safely on the sidelines in a money market alternative. Later surprised by substantial losses in this fund, many now seek legal representation. On its website, AMF describes…
The US Securities and Exchange Commission has filed insider trading charges against Jun Ying, the ex-chief information officer of an Equifax US business unit. The regulator contends that Ying engaged in insider trading in 2007 before the consumer credit reporting agency announced that there had been a major data breach…
Martin Shkreli to Go to Prison for Seven Years A federal judge has sentenced former hedge fund manager Martin Shkreli to seven years behind bars. Shkreli was found guilty of defrauding investors of his MSMB Capital Management hedge fund while manipulating the stock of his drug company Retrophin. His…
Direct Services LLC and Voya Investment LLC, two Voya Holdings Inc. investment adviser subsidiaries, will pay about $3.6M to settle Securities and Exchange Commission charges accusing them of failing to make certain disclosures related to securities lending. Of that amount, over $2M will go straight to mutual funds that were…