Robert B. Hahn has pled guilty to wire fraud and money laundering in a $5.4M Texas financial fraud that bilked about 100 investors. He faces up to 20 years behind bars. According to information presented before the judge, from 1/07 to 2/15, Hahn, who was an insurance agent, claimed to…
Barclays Resolves Securities Fraud Claims Related to Libor Rigging Barclays PLC (BARC) has consented to pay $120 million to resolve securities fraud claims accusing the bank of conspiring with competitors to manipulate the London Interbank Offered Rate, also known as Libor. Barclays is the first to settle allegations made by…
FINRA Fines Deutsche Bank Securities $1.4M The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority is fining Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. (DB) $1.4M for Regulation SHO violations, as well as for supervisory failures. According to the self-regulatory organization, for more than 10 years, the firm improperly included securities positions of a broker-dealer affiliate who…
A federal bankruptcy court has approved plans to issue $1.18B to investors who lost money in Bernard Madoff’s multibillion-dollar Ponzi scam. This means that immediate distribution of the funds can take place to those whose claims for repayment have been approved by Madoff trustee Irving Picard. This is the sixth…
Wedbush to Pay Trusts, Family Members Over $813,000 A Financial Industry Regulatory Authority Panel says that Wedbush securities and investment advisor Kevin Thomas Scarpelli must jointly and severally pay several investors over $813,000 to resolve allegations of professional negligence and failure to supervise related to investments made in Natural Resources…
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is suing Earl D. Miller for securities fraud. According to the regulator, the Indiana man bilked investors, many of whom were Amish and new to investing, through private investment vehicles 5 Star Capital LLC and 5 Star Commercial LLC. The SEC says Miller began…
The Massachusetts securities division is widening its probe into alleged proxy voting fraud at Realty Capital Securities to include independent broker-dealers and advisers that sold RCS alternative investments, including nontraded real estate investment trusts. According to Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin’s complaint against RCS, firm employees communicated with…
A Dallas jury says that Southwest Securities Inc., which is a broker-dealer owned by PlainsCapital subsidiary Hilltop Holdings, and broker Leighton Stallones are liable for statutory fraud, fraud, and conspiracy and violation of securities laws related to a 2007 real estate scam. Now, the firm must pay two investors, SSST…
The Securities and Exchange Commission says that Virtus Investment Advisers will pay $16.5M to resolve charges accusing the investment management firm of misleading mutual fund investors and others using ads with false historical performance information about exchange-traded fund portfolio strategy AlphaSector. According to the regulator, the firm publicized a performance…
The Securities and Exchange Commission is reminding advisory firms to stay aware of their own compliance functions. After about 20 examinations of advisers that utilized compliance firms, the regulator found that external compliance officers sometimes were not aware of a firm’s business access, did not communicate regularly with firm principals,…