Morgan Stanley Investment Management (MISM) will pay $8.8 million to resolve SEC charges accusing a firm portfolio manager of engaging in a parking scheme that gave preferential treatment to certain client accounts. Also, as part of the settlement, SG Americas, who is accused of helping in the fraud, will pay…
Connecticut Firm Accused of Conflict of Interest Involving $43M Fraud The Securities and Exchange Commission is filing fraud charges against Atlantic Asset Management LLC (AAM). The regulator says that the Connecticut-based investment advisory firm got clients involved in certain bonds that resulted in an undisclosed financial benefit to a brokerage…
J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. (JPM) will pay $307M to resolve Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission charges accusing two of its units of not telling wealthy clients about certain conflicts of interest. The JPM businesses are J.P. Morgan Securities LLC, its wealth management investment advisory business…
New Hampshire’s Bureau of Securities Regulation says that LPL Financial has consented to pay $750,000 to resolve charges involving the sale of nontraded real estate investment trusts to an elderly investor. The state says that transactions were not only unlawful but also they were suitable for the 81-year-old customer. The…
Fidelity Investments Unit Faces ERISA Fiduciary Breach Claims Fidelity Management Trust Co. has been named a defendant in a class action securities case under ERISA law. The plaintiffs claim that the Fidelity Investments unit is in fiduciary breach under ERISA because it included a stable value fund as an investment…
Just days after the collapse of Third Avenue Management LLC’s junk bond fund the Focused Credit Fund (TFCVX), the company’s CEO David M. Barse is out, says the Wall Street Journal. The news comes following Barse’s announcement that redemptions to the high yield mutual fund’s investors would be frozen. The…
United Development Funding IV Shares Fall After Allegations of Texas Ponzi Scheme United Development Funding IV (“UDF IV”), a Texas-based real estate investment trust (“REIT”), saw its share price drop after Harvest Exchange published a post that said the REIT had been run like a Ponzi scheme for years. United…
Millennium Global Emerging Credit Fund Ltd. is suing Citigroup (C). The hedge fund’s liquidators claim that the bank undervalued assets when it closed out certain trades during the financial crisis in 2008. They believe that Citigroup did this at rates that failed to reflect the true market value. Millennium sustained…
Morgan Stanley (MS) will pay $225 million to resolve claims brought by the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) for Western Corporate Federal Credit Union, U.S. Central Federal Credit Union, Southwest Corporate Federal Credit Union and Members United Corporate Federal Credit Union. The credit unions contend that the firm left out…
The United States Congress is considering two bills to help Puerto Rico out of its more than $70 billion debt crisis. The first bill, proposed by the Senate Finance Committee and spearheaded by Republican lawmakers, would offer the island’s government $3 billion in emergency cash, reduce the federal employee tax…