A judge has approved an $8.5B mortgage-bond settlement between Bank of America (BAC) and investors. The agreement should settle most of the bank’s liability from when it acquired Countrywide Financial Corp. while the financial crisis was happening and resolves contentions that the loans behind the bonds were not up to…
The New York Supreme Court has vacated the $11M FINRA arbitration award against Citigroup Global Markets Inc. (C) and one of its employees. The securities case is Citigroup Global Markets Inc. v. Fiorilla. Judge Charles Ramos vacated the award after determining that the parties had agreed to settle the arbitration…
The SEC says that Camelot Acquisitions Secondary Opportunities Management and owner Lawrence E. Penn III of stealing $9 million from a private equity fund. Also named in the securities fraud complaint are Altura Ewers and three entities, two of which are Camelot entities owned by Penn. The regulator says that…
The current quagmire of UBS Puerto Rico offloading billions of dollars in speculative Puerto Rico bonds onto its unsuspecting clients is by no means a new or limited occurrence for UBS. UBS has a history of taking huge gambles and often passing the bad bets onto its clients. Between 2002…
Raoul Weil, who previously served as head of UBS (UBS)’s Global Wealth Management division, has pleaded guilty to fraud conspiracy charges related to a US tax investigation probe involving the Swiss bank. Weil, 54, is accused of conspiring to help thousands of American citizens hide $12 billion at the bank.…
At a webcast on January 22, lawyers said that the electronic communication issues and the retention of e-mail would be a big part of broker-enforcement by Financial Industry Regulatory Authority and the SEC this year. E-mails are reportedly now a key factor in investigations by the two regulators. Also now…
The level of co-dependence between UBS Puerto Rico and Puerto Rico over the past several years is shocking. UBS Puerto Rico has been operating for almost 50 years. It has grown to the point that it manages almost as much money in Puerto Rico as every other brokerage firm combined.…
The Federal Reserve will soon likely finish the rules that would force big foreign banks to follow the same requirements as their US counterparts are have been abiding by ever since the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. A number of these overseas banks are reportedly not happy…
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority is barring J.P. Morgan Securities, LLC (JPM) vice president David Michael Gutman and ex-Meyers Associates LP Christopher John Tyndall from the securities industry for their alleged involvement in an insider trading scheme. According to the self-regulatory organization between March 2006 and October 2007, Gutman, who…
Brian Williamson, a former Oppenheimer & Co. (OPY) portfolio manager, has consented to a securities industry bar and will pay $100,000 as a penalty to the Securities and Exchange Commission. The settlement resolves private equity fund fraud charges accusing him of making misrepresentation about one the value of one fund.…