According to the Wall Street Journal, a 2010 survey conducted by the financial education organization Investor Protection Trust reports that out of ever five Americans age 65 and over, one of them has been the victim of elder financial abuse. The paper is calling this an epidemic. A tracking by…
Former SAC Capital Portfolio Manager Mathew Martoma On Trial for Securities Fraud Mathew Martoma, the ex-SAC Capital Advisors portfolio manager accused in the insider trading scam that involved $276 million in Wyeth and Elan stocks, is now on trial. Martoma allegedly used tips from a doctor involved in Alzheimer drug…
Nicholas Schorsch, the executive chairman of RSC Capital Corp.’s (RCAP) board of directors, has just announced that the brokerage firm is going to buy independent broker-dealer J.P. Turner for $27 million. The news comes one day after RSC announced it was buying brokerage firm Cetera Financial Group for $1.15 billion…
Credit Suisse Group AG (ADR) is currently in talks with the US Department of Justice to settle allegations that the Swiss bank helped American citizens evade taxes. Credit Suisse is one of a dozen Swiss banks under criminal investigation for allegedly helping US citizens use the bank secrecy laws of…
UBS’s continual, massive sale of Puerto Rico municipal bonds and UBS’s proprietary Puerto Rico bond funds involves a number of failures of its legal duties, some of which vary by the individual facts of each investor. According to the SEC investigation, UBS Puerto Rico was ordered by its parent company…
FINRA Fines COR Clearing LLC $1M for Disregarding Red Flags The Financial Industry Regulatory Association is continuing to crack down on brokerage firms that don’t detect and investigate “red flags” indicating possible suspect activity. Earlier this month it fined COR Clearing LLC $1 million for its purported failure to put…
UBS Puerto Rico A catastrophic collapse of life savings such as many investors in Puerto Rico bonds have been experiencing does not just happen on its own. There are inevitably a number of different parties that are involved, often to varying degrees. For most affected investors, the main party is…
As part of its broader mandate under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, this year the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board will concentrate on implementing a regulatory framework for municipal advisors that will encompass professional qualification standards, rules, and education. Already, the MSRB has made a priority the…
Financial Industry Regulatory Authority says that Century Securities Associates, Inc. and Stifel, Nicolaus & Company, Inc. must pay almost $1 million over the sale of inverse and leveraged exchange-traded funds. Stifel Financial Corporation (SF) owns both firms. According to the SRO, for more than four years Century and Stifel recommended…
While a district court allowed the securities fraud claims brought under securities law against LightSpeed Environmental, Inc. & other defendants to go forward, the claims brought against the company under Section 12(a)(2) of the Securities Act were thrown out. The securities case is Wang v. LightSpeed Environmental, Inc. The court…