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…
U.S. district judge says that Public Employees’ Retirement System of Mississippi v. Goldman Sachs Group Inc., a securities fraud lawsuit, may proceed as a class action case. Some 150 investors would fall under this class plaintiff category as they seeking damages related to a $698 million mortgage-backed securities offering. According…
According to The New York Times, the Securities and Exchange Commission is attempting to make the municipal bond market less “opaque.” One way it is doing this is by adding more disclosure requirements. For example, muni bond issuers now have to publish bond rating changes, financial statements, and other material…
ISS, a shareholder advisory firm, has placed an employee on administrative leave following allegations that this person sold the confidential voting information of clients in exchange for gifts and cash. MCSI is the parent company of ISS, which advises large shareholders on how to vote their shares while helping them…