The CFTC is ordering Morgan Stanley Smith Barney LLC (MS) to pay a civil monetary penalty of $200,000 for alleged supervisory failures related to customer account handling by employees, which is a violation of CFTC regulation 166.3. Its Order maintains that Morgan Stanley did not have adequate supervisory and internal…
One year after The Rand Family pled guilty to bilking over 200 investors in $68M Dallas Ponzi scam, a number of their expensive instruments are going up for auction. The money from the sales will go towards paying back their victims. The Rand Family, who owned oil and gas owned…
The United States is suing Bank of America Corporation (BAC) for more than $1 billion over alleged mortgage fraud involving the sale of defective loans to Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. The federal government contends that Countrywide, and then later Bank of America, following its acquisition of the former, executed…
The producers of the Broadway musical “Rebecca” have filed a $100 million fraud lawsuit against former Oppenheimer & Co. broker Mark Hotton because they say he scammed them by pretending to raise $4.5 million from investors for the play while they paid him and his entities $60,000. Hotton was arrested…
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority is ordering David Lerner Associates, Inc. to pay $14M for allegedly engaging in unfair sales practices involving its Apple REIT Ten and charging clients excessive markups. $12 million of this will be restitution to the investors that bought shares in the $2 billion non-traded real…
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority has expelled EKN Financial Services for a number of compliance violations and for letting firm CEO Anthony Ottimo act in the capacity of supervisor even after the Securities and Exchange Commission had barred him from doing so in 2008. FINRA has barred Ottimo from the…
According to the Wall Street Journal, Guggenheim Partners, Harbinger Capital Partners, and Apollo Global Management are just some of the money managers who have begun to acquire fixed annuities. These investments, which were sold by life insurance companies to conservative savers for decades, are now being seen by these newest…
The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas is allowing Small Ventures USA LP, a private equity firm based in Houston, to move forward with its Delaware fraud claim against the promoters that solicited its $10 million investment in RT Newbridge III LLC, a film financing venture. Judge…
Jon Horvath, an ex-research analyst at a New York hedge fund, has pled guilty to two counts of securities fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud related to a $61.8 million insider trading scheme. Several other former hedge fund managers and analysts from different investment firms and…
A Financial Industry Regulatory Authority panel says that Merrill Lynch (MER) has to pay Michele and Robert Billings $1.34 million for allegedly misrepresenting the risks involved in preferred shares of Fannie Mae. The couple, who used to own a pest control business, placed $2.3 million in the shares in 2008…