Superior Court Judge Frances McIntyre has denied brokerage firm Oppenheimer & Co.‘s request to impound hundreds of records that are key in a dispute with an ex-employee. The ex-employee is James Dever, who used to be a manager at the broker-dealer’s Boston office. Judge McIntyre found that public interest in…
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit is affirming a district court’s ruling that Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc. does not need to arbitrate a disputes over auction-rate securities losses suffered by the state of Louisiana and the Louisiana Stadium and Exposition District (known collectively as LSED). The…
It is often said that one critical statement to a child offsets 10 positive ones. The same effect can be found in the stock market, where an analyst’s downgrade is worth, in dollars and cents, sometimes ten times that of an upgrade. Take for example the price movement of shares…
Two former Wachovia Securities LLC brokers, Eddie W. Sawyers and William K. Harrison, have been charged by the Securities and Exchange Commission with six counts of securities fraud. The two men, who previously operated Harrison/Sawyers Financial Services, are accused of defrauding at least 42 elderly investors of their retirement savings,…
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has affirmed that an ex-Nordstrom Inc’s (JWN) technology official’s complaint that her firing violated the Sarbanes-Oxley Act’s whistleblower protections is untimely. According to Judge Milan D. Smith Jr., SOX’s 90-day limitations period started running on plaintiff Carole Coppinger-Martin’s last day on…
Hedge fund manager and investment adviser Trueblue Strategies LLC owner Neil Godbole has agreed to settle for $40,000 Securities and Exchange Commission charges that he hid his investors’ trading losses. Godbole also agreed to an advisory industry bar for a minimum of five years and to cease and desist from…
Federal prosecutors have arrested four people on insider trading charges related to the alleged revealing of secrets about Apple Inc.’s iPhone and other technology products to hedge funds looking for a trading advantage. Those arrested included Primary Global Research executive James Fleishman and “expert consultants” Mark Anthony Longoria from Texas,…
Bank of America has agreed to pay $137 million to settle charges that it was involved in a financial scheme that allowed it to pay cities, states, and school districts low interest rates on their investments. The financial firm allegedly conspired with rivals to share municipalities’ investment business without having…
The trustee for the DBSI Inc. bankruptcy is suing 96 independent broker-dealers for securities fraud related to suspect tenant-in-common exchanges that were sold to investors. James Zazzali is seeking about $49 million in commissions earned. In his securities fraud complaint, Zazzali, who is a retired Supreme Court of New Jersey…
A district court has rejected Goldman Sachs & Co.’s (GS ) challenge to a $20.5 million securities fraud award for unsecured creditors of the failed Bayou hedge funds. The unsecured creditors are blaming the investment bank of failing to look at certain red flags and, as a result, facilitating the…