FINRA Takes a Closer Look at Variable Annuities At a recent Insured Retirement Institute Conference, Financial Industry Regulatory Authority Inc. enforcement officials said that even though variable annuities are not on the regulator’s list of examination priorities for 2016 this doesn’t mean it isn’t scrutinizing them. FINRA Sr. VP/deputy enforcement…
The U.S. Supreme Court struck down a Puerto Rico law that would have let its public utilities restructure $20 billion of debt. The territory’s officials enacted the Recovery Act in 2014 in an attempt to help it deal with its $70 billion of debt. Puerto Rico’s large public utilities owe…
Martin Shkreli, the former chief executive of Retrophin Inc., has pleaded not guilty to a new charge of conspiracy. Shkreli was arrested last year for allegedly plotting to bilk the pharmaceutical company to cover up losses sustained by investors in his hedge funds. He was let go as CEO two…
In the High Court in London, the trial in the lawsuit brought by the Libyan Investment Authority (LIA) against Goldman Sachs (GS) is under way. The sovereign wealth fund claims that in 2008 the Wall Street bank misled it about a number of derivatives transactions, causing it to lose $1.2B…
A Financial Industry Regulatory Authority arbitration panel has awarded former NBA basketball player Keyon Dooling and ex-NFL athlete John St. Clair $819,000 in damages in their securities case against Morgan Stanley (MS). The two men accused the firm of negligent supervision of a former broker whom they blame for their…
Mayor of Harvey, Illinois Barred From Future Involvement In Muni Bond Offerings Eric J. Kellog, the mayor of Harvey, Illinois, will pay $10K to resolve the Securities and Exchange Commission’s case accusing him of municipal bond fraud. As part of the settlement, Kellog has agreed to never take part in…
The U.S. House of Representatives passed PROMESA, a bill to help Puerto Rico deal with its recession and its over $70 billion debt, in a landslide vote of 297-to-127. The island has been in financial trouble for some time now, with many of its residents leaving because the situation has…
FINRA is fining Oppenheimer & Co. Inc. (OPY) $2.2M for the sale of non-traditional exchange-traded funds, including inverse, leveraged, and inverse-leveraged ETFs, to retail customers without proper supervision and for suggesting them to clients even though they were not appropriate investments for them. The self-regulatory organization is also making the…
The Securities and Exchange Commission is charging Hope Advisors Inc. and owner Karen Bruton with scheming to get two hedge funds that they managed to pay them extra fees. The private hedge funds are HDB Investments LLC and Hope Investment LLC. The purported misconduct was discovered by the regulator’s Atlanta…
The Securities and Exchange Commission says that Morgan Stanley Smith Barney LLC (MS) will pay a $1M penalty to resolve charges involving its purported failure to protect customer data. Some of this information was hacked and violators attempted to sell the data online. According to the regulator, the firm did…