Last week, CFTC Commissioner Bart Chilton unveiled a plan to give futures intermediaries’ clients Securities Investor Protection Corporation-like protections via the creation of a Futures Investor and Customer Protection Fund. Similar to the SIPC Fund, this fund would be called the Futures Investor and Customer Protection Fund, and it would…
The SEC is charging Wells Fargo Securities, formerly known as Wells Fargo Brokerage Services, and former VP Shawn McMurtry for selling complex investments to institutional investors without fully comprehending the investments’ level of sophistication or disclosing all of the risks involved to these clients. To settle the securities charges, Wells…
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second has vacated the convictions of six brokers who were criminally charged in a front-running scam to give day traders privileged information via brokerage firms’ squawk boxes. The case is United States v. Mahaffy. Judge Barrington Parker said that confidence in the jury’s…
The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas has tossed out a would-be class action securities lawsuit challenging BP plc’s (BP) cancellation of a 2010 first quarter dividend announcement after the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Per the court, the plaintiff did not demonstrate that BP or subsidiary BP American…
According to SEC Division of Corporation Finance director Meredith Cross, Corp Fin is now looking at issuers’ closers related to the LIBOR scandal. Cross said that right now we are in the ‘early stages” for these types of disclosures, which could be more material for financial institutions. She also spoke…
Reuters is reporting that sources aware of internal talks taking place at Morgan Stanley (MS) are saying that the financial firm is thinking about shutting down brokerage offices as part of its efforts to increase profit margins in its retail brokerage arm. It also is reportedly considering laying off support…
Broker-dealer Biremis Corp. and its CEO and president Peter Beck agreed to be barred from the securities industry to settle Financial Industry Regulatory Authority allegations that they committed supervisory violations related to the prevention of manipulative trading, securities law violations, and money laundering. The SRO says that even though the…
Clifford Jagodzinski has filed a lawsuit against Morgan Stanley & Co. (MS), Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, and Citigroup (C). He claims that he was fired from his job at Morgan Stanley as a complex risk officer because he reported that an investment adviser was churning accounts and earning tens of…
The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia said that Citigroup (C) and UBS (UBS)cannot preliminarily enjoin Financial Industry Regulatory Authority arbitration over an auction-rate securities offering that did not succeed. The case is UBS Financial Services Inc. v. Carilion Clinic. Carilion is a nonprofit health care and…
Five years after the US Securities and Exchange Commission issued an emergency action to stop the Amerifirst securities fraud, all of the defendants accused of defrauding more than 500 investors-many of them senior citizens-of over $50 million in Texas and Florida have now been sentenced for their crimes. The last…