According to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, the Securities and Exchange Commission cannot order former Rauscher Pierce Refsnes Inc. broker Michael Siegel to uphold an award of restitution to investors who sustained financial losses as a result of his alleged broker misconduct. Siegel worked…
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has affirmed the dismissal of LSF5 Bond Holdings LLC and Lone Star Fund V (U.S.) L.P.’s $60 million securities fraud claims against Barclays Capital Inc. and Barclays Bank PLC. The court noted that Barclays never represented that the mortgage pass-through certificates…
Joseph P. Collins, a former Mayor Brown partner, has been sentenced to seven years in prison for his role in a $2.45 billion investment fraud scheme involving Refco Inc. He had hoped to obtain a more lenient sentence. In July 2009, a jury found Collins guilty of wire fraud and…
According to FINRA dispute resolution president Linda Fienberg, the market turmoil of the last two years has led to an increase in the number of arbitration cases filed, as well as a change in the the kinds of claims that are submitted. Fienberg made her statements before the DC bar.…
US News and World Report says that the first decade of the 21st Century for fund investors got worse after the dotcom bubble burst in 2000. The media publication picked its 10 worst fund disasters: Reserve Primary Fund: Investors scrambled to cash in shares after the fund’s price sank to…
A FINRA arbitration panel is ordering SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc. to pay $4.1 million to a former institutional salesperson who claims he was defamed in a regulatory filing and wrongfully terminated. SunTrust Robinson Humphrey is the corporate and investment bank services unit of SunTrust Banks, Inc. Lance B. Beck, who…
On Monday, the victims of Robert Bentley’s $1 billion Ponzi scam suffered a setback when a federal appeals court overturned a $32.7 million jury verdict against Peninsula Bank of Delray Beach, its ex-executive vice president, Joseph Marzouca, Southeastern Securities, Inc., and its president Theodore Benghiat. The defendants are accused of…
The number of Ponzi scams that fell apart increased by nearly four times in 2009, compared to the year, before resulting in over $16.5 billion in investor losses. This figure comes from the Associated Press, which analyzed Ponzi schemes in all US states. Additional findings from the AP analysis: •…
A shareholder derivative complaint filed by Security Police and Fire Professionals of America Retirement Fund and Judith A. Miller Living Trust is accusing Goldman Sachs Group Inc. executives of breaching their fiduciary duties for failing to modify the investment firm’s compensation policies according to the best interests of shareholders. Goldman’s…
A judge has turn down JPMorgan Chase‘s request that a petitioner pay the investment bank $9,122 for providing subpoenaed documents to confirm an arbitration award. Instead, Judge Arthur Schack issued an 11-page ruling granting just $1.250.27 to JPMorgan Chase for producing 18,248 pages. The investment bank had sought to bill…