The Securities and Exchange Commission wants the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York to approve the proposed securities settlements that it reached with Matthew Tannin and Ralph Cioffi, two former Bear Stearns & Co. portfolio managers. The SEC says the deals are “fair, adequate, and reasonable.”…
Investment Advisory Firms Settle SEC’s Failure to Disclose Mutual Fund Risk Allegations for Over $47M Claymore Advisors LLC and Fiduciary Asset Management LLC have agreed to pay over $47 million to settle SEC proceedings related to the roles that they allegedly played in failing to properly disclose the risky derivative…
With regulators tasked with finalizing the Volcker rule, Democratic lawmakers want them to make sure that the rule makes clear that banks are allowed to invest in venture capital funds. The proposed rule is geared toward lowering financial system risk by not letting banks to take part in proprietary trading,…
The Securities and Exchange Commission wants investors to watch out for scammers pretending to be SEC employees who are soliciting investments. The warning is an update of a previous alert. The Commission is issuing it once again in the wake of a rise in the number complaints about this type…
Securities and Exchange Commission Chairwoman Mary L. Schapiro said that the agency’s practice of reaching settlements with financial firms without them having to admit wrongdoing has “deterrent value” despite the fact that some of these firms have been charged more than once for violating the same securities laws. Schapiro noted…
The National Futures Association has put out an emergency enforcement action against J Hansen Investments LLC and Jonathan Hansen, who is the financial firm’s principal. The Houston, Texas financial firm is a commodity pool operator and an NFA member. NFA actions taken against JHI and Hansen are the Associate Responsibility…
The Securities and Exchange Commission is adopting changes to the dollar amount thresholds, under the 1940 Investment Advisers Act, that are used to determine whether an advisory clients can be made to pay a performance fee. Per the current provision, an adviser has to be managing at least $750k of…
Our institutional investment fraud lawyers have reported often on real estate investment trusts (REITs). Today we’d like to talk about private REITs. An REIT is a trust, corporation, or association that owns income-producing real estate. Investors’ capital is pooled by REITs to buy a portfolio of properties. There are public…
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit says that the Securities and Exchange Commission did not abuse its discretion when it determined that broker Scott Mathis “willfully” withheld information from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority about tax liens. Mathis had submitted a petition seeking for the court to…
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission is suing Texas resident Christopher Cornett for alleged solicitation fraud, issuing false account statements, misappropriation of participants’ funds, and not registering in connection with an off-exchange foreign currency fraud. The CFTC filed its complaint on February 2 in the U.S. District Court for the Western…