The Securities and Exchange Commission has put out an emergency enforcement action to stop a pyramid scam that has already taken $300,000 from about 150 investors in the US. The scheme involves bogus companies pretending to be an international investment firm. Customers were solicited via Twitter, Skype, Facebook, and YouTube.…
According to documents filed by Credit Suisse (CS) in Massachusetts state court, reports The New York Times, top officials at the financial firm encouraged subordinates to ignore due diligence standards and approve questionable loans that ended up packaged into mortgage investments. Also included in the papers are finding that there…
According to a study for The Wall Street Journal, investors in municipal bonds are paying trading commissions that are around twice as high as those for corporate bonds. Individuals continue to be the largest participants in the muni bond industry, currently valued at $3.7 trillion, because these bonds are considered…
A jury has convicted Ex-Jefferies Group LLC (JEF) trader Jesse Litvak of securities fraud. Litvak was found guilty of 15 criminal counts, including 10 securities fraud counts related to his misrepresenting bond prices to customers so he could make more money for him and his firm. He pleaded not guilty…
According to a Public Investors Arbitration Bar Association study, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority “routinely” erases certain red flags in the records of brokers from its online BrokerCheck resource-the same tool that it tells investors to go to check on the history of financial representatives. The PIABA study looked at…
The Securities and Exchange Commission’s Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations Director Andrew Bowden says that investment advisers should be careful when putting investors in alternative mutual funds. The agency says there has been a rise in complex trading strategies in mutual funds and nontraditional investments, with assets in alternative…
According to a review of Financial Industry Regulatory Authority actions in 2013, fines imposed by the self-regulatory organization dropped by 27% compared to the year before, even though the number of cases during both were almost identical. Sutherland Asbill & Brennan LLP, which completed the review, said that last year…
Although a decision is not likely until June in Halliburton v. Erica P. John Fund, it doesn’t look as if the US Supreme Court will seek to overturn the “fraud on the market” theory, set up in 1988 in Basic Inc. v. Levinson. In that earlier ruling, it was determined…
Even as she serves her 33-month sentence for securities fraud, Jane O’Brien, a former Merrill Lynch (MER) broker, has now been indicted for her alleged involvement in a Ponzi scam that purportedly ran for nearly two decades. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts says that O’Brien is…
The city of Detroit has agreed to pay Bank of America Corp.’s (BAC) Merrill Lynch (MER) and UBS AG (UBSN) $85 million as part of a settlement to end interest-rate swaps, which taxpayers have had to pay over $200 million for in the last four years. Now, US Bankruptcy Judge…