Goldman Sachs (GS) Group Inc. said it is under scrutiny in probes related to high-frequency trading and whether its hiring practices comply US antibribery laws. This is the first time the firm has publicly disclosed both investigations. The information was made available via Goldman’s quarterly filing with the SEC. In…
A New York appeals court says that Citigroup (C) must face a collateralized debt obligation lawsuit accusing the firm of lying about the risks involved in nearly $1 billion of securities. The plaintiff is Loreley Financing, a group of investment companies in the Channel Islands that was set up to…
The Texas State Securities Board has reprimanded Senator Ken Paxton and ordered him pay a $1,000 fine for soliciting investment clients even though he wasn’t properly registered. According to the board’s disciplinary order, Paxton, who is running for state attorney general, violated the Texas Securities Act. Under the Act’s Section…
Timothy C. Davidson, a Florida investment adviser, is suing BlackRock (BLK). He says the money manager and other defendants breached their fiduciary duty by charging disproportionately high investment advisory fees for the BlackRock Global Allocation Fund (MDLOX). He says that the excessive fees had “no reasonable relationship” to the services…
Regulators belonging to the Financial Stability Oversight Council are looking at the new practices of asset managers, mortgage services companies, and insurers to search for potential threats related to certain high risk investment areas. The group just issued its yearly report to Congress, highlighting certain risks, both current and emerging…
Morgan Stanley Smith Barney LLC (MS) will pay a $5 million fine for supervisory failures involving its advisors soliciting shares in 83 IPOs to retail investors. The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority says that the firm lacked the proper training and procedures to make sure that salespersons knew the difference between…
A Financial Industry Arbitration panel says that Ameriprise Financial Services Inc. (AMP) must pay $1.17M to two senior investors for getting them involved in investments that failed. The panel said that the financial firm acted inappropriately when it advised Albertus Niehuis Jr., 82, and his wife Andrea, to put $1.03M…
The Federal Reserve says that for now Bank of America (BAC) has to suspend its plans to give money back to shareholders because it did not correctly report capital ratios on recent stress tests. The mistake was a result of an “incorrect adjustment” connected to bad debts that the bank…
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority has decided to pay closer attention to the sale of fixed annuities in part because brokerage firms are selling a larger chunk of indexed annuities these days. Regulators want to examine the procedures and policies involving clients giving up or trading variable annuities to place…
The Securities and Exchange Commission has filed charges against American Pension Services Inc., a third-party administrator of retirement plans based in Utah and its founder Curtis L. DeYoung. The regulator says that they caused clients to lose about $22 million in risky investments involving certain business ventures. American Pension Services…