State Securities Regulators and others are battling over how the US Securities and Exchange Commission should create a $50 million offering cap for exempt offerings under regulation A. The Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act had ordered the SEC to establish the new exemption but gave no deadline. Referred to by…
A Financial Industry Regulatory Authority Panel is ordering Goldman Sachs & Co. (GS) to pay about $2.5M to Tracy Landow for recommending that she invest in the Goldman Sachs Special Opportunities Fund 2006, which she is now contending was an investment that was not appropriate for her. Landow filed her…
Investment News is reporting that in the wake of pressure from regulators, Berthel Fisher & Co. Financial Services Inc., Cetera Financial Group Inc. and VSR Financial Services Inc., are modifying the way they sell specific alternative investments, including nontraded real estate investment trusts, by revising current policy or including no…
New SEC Chairman Reviews “Neither Admit, Nor Deny Wrongdoing” Policy Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Mary Jo White is taking a closer look at the agency’s practice of letting defendants that settle cases with it not have to admit to or deny the allegations. Critics of the policy have been…
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…