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…
SRO Says Brokerage Can Institutional Customers PIP Data About ETPs Under Certain Conditions Financial Industry Regulatory Authority staff have determined that under certain conditions, broker-dealers are permitted to include pre-inception performance information in communications with institutional investors about exchange-traded products, also known as ETPs. Staffers said that FINRA Rule 2210,…
The SEC is suing four traders affiliated with brokerage firm Direct Access Partners for their alleged involvement in a financial scam that involved millions of dollars paid in illicit bribes to a Venezuelan banking official to obtain that bank’s bond trading business. According to the regulator, DAPs’ global markets group…
In Harris County state District Court, two men have received prison terms of a decade each for running a Texas Ponzi scam that involved life insurance policy death benefits. Gregory F. Jablonski and Howard Glen Judah are accused of orchestrating a nearly $30M scam involving their National Life Settlements LLC,…
Ex-Commission Officials, Others Want DC Circuit to Grant Stanford Ponzi Scam Victims SIPC Protection Former SEC Officials, law professors, and trade groups are among those pressing the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to reject the regulator’s bid to compel Securities Investor Protection Corporation coverage for…
Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC) has consented to pay $105M to investors of the now failed Medical Capital Holdings Inc. The bank had served as trustee for Medical Capital securities. The medical receivables financing company got about $2.2 billion from thousands of investors between 2001 and 2009 via the private…
Class action securities plaintiffs, led by the Iowa Public Employees’ Retirement System, have settled their mortgage-backed securities lawsuit against Countrywide for $500 million. This is the largest federal class action MBS securities case in the US that has been resolved to date, even exceeding the $315 million settlement reached with…