In what is being called the SRO’s largest fine to date over e-mail violations, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority announced that it is fining LPL Financial LLC $7.5 million over 35 key e-mail system failures. The financial firm also has to set up a $1.5 million fund to compensate customers…
Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts William Galvin announced today that the state has reached a $9.6M securities settlement with five independent brokerage dealers-Ameriprise Financial Services Inc. (AMP), Commonwealth Financial Network, Lincoln Financial Advisors Corp., Royal Alliance Associates Inc., & Securities America Inc.-over the allegedly inappropriate sale of nontraded real…
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority says that LPL Financial LLC must pay a $7.5 million fine for inadequately supervising more than 28 million business emails between 2007 and 2013. This is the largest fine the SRO has ever imposed over an e-mail case. According to FINRA, LPL’s systems for overseeing…
$10M Texas Ponzi Scam Solicited Over 100 Investors Austin resident Robert Roland Langguth is sentenced to four years in federal prison for running a $10 million Texas Ponzi scam that solicited over 100 investors to become involved in real and bogus construction projects and investments. Often, the money brought in…
Pointing to the US Supreme Court’s ruling in Morrison v. National Australia Bank Ltd., the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois dismissed the SEC’s allegations that a group of entities and persons violated broker-dealer registration requirements in an alleged $44 million international boiler room scam. The broker…
In a joint op-ed, ex-New York governors George Pataki and Mario Cuomo are asking NY Attorney General Eric Schneiderman to reconsider his efforts to seek remedies, including injunctive relief, against Maurice “Hank Greenberg,” the former American International Group (AIG) chief. The former governors believe that not only will such a…
In Australia, two Morgan Stanley (MS) customers are suing the financial firm for $5 million because they say that is much their superannual accounts lost because of alleged misrepresentations made by broker Kate Kearney. Helen Sedman, 74, and Sally Middleton, 61, claim that Kearney deceived them into thinking that an…
According to The Dealmaker’s Journal, the list of banks in danger of failing has gotten smaller. Bank observers are speculating whether the failures have decreased because of election year politics, the industry is becoming more robust, regulatory agencies have changed leadership, or other factors. Regulators tend to shut down banks…
According to California Attorney General Kamala Harris, JP Morgan Chase (JPM) filed about 100,000 credit card debt collection lawsuits between 2008 and 2011 without conducting sufficient research to properly assess the cases’ merits. The bank reportedly submitted 200 lawsuits over 15 weeks in 2011, including 32 lawsuits on January 5,…
Hedge fund billionaire Philip Falcone and his Harbinger Group (HRG) have reached an $18 million securities fraud settlement, an agreement in principle, with the SEC over allegations that he fraudulently took a $113 million loan from one of his funds to cover his taxes, manipulated the market, and gave preference…