Bank of America Corp. (BAC) has agreed to pay $150 million, in addition to $1 million in disgorgement, to settle the Securities and Exchange Commission’s charges over the investment bank’s proxy-related disclosures regarding the Merrill Lynch acquisition. U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff said he hopes to decide by February…
A jury has convicted Phillip Windom Offill Jr. of Texas securities fraud. The Dallas lawyer and former SEC trial attorney was found guilty of nine counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy for his involvement in a “pump and dump” scam that sold nine companies’ unregistered securities to…
At a closed-door meeting scheduled for February 10, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority board of governors will preside over a closed-door meeting to assess allegations made by Amerivet Securities Inc. that certain FINRA executives, including chief executive Mary Schapiro, received excessive pay. The brokerage firm submitted a letter to the…
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority has had to bring in hundreds of additional arbitrators to deal with the approximately 400 securities fraud claims that investors have filed against Regions Financial Corp., the investment banking unit of Morgan Keegan & Co. Investors are seeking to recover $35 million after three of…
Two ex- JPMorgan Chase & Co. bankers that the Securities and Exchange Commission is suing over their alleged involvement in certain swap transactions are asking the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama to throw out most of the securities fraud charges that the regulator agency has filed…
Upholding a lower court’s decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed that investors’ securities claims in two Morgan Stanley (MS) mutual funds-the Morgan Stanley Technology Fund and the Morgan Stanley Information Fund-should be dismissed. The claimants had accused the investment firm of failing to disclose conflicts…
According to the US Securities and Exchange Commission, the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act’s safe harbor as it applies to certain forward-looking statements isn’t triggered by cautionary remarks made by defendants over the impact of “potential deterioration in the high-yield sector” if, per the plaintiffs’ claim, the defendants knew the…
In Texas, a US district court judge has refused to dismiss a class action securities fraud claim against Cushing MLP Total Return Fund CEO Jerry V. Swank and CFO Mark Fordyce. The Texas securities fraud claim accuses the defendants of misrepresentations and omissionsrelated to the fund’s deferred tax asset. Other…
According to Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Mary Schapiro, the agency is dealing with a number of credit crisis-related issues associated with money market mutual funds, asset-backed securities, and credit ratings. She also said that the SEC is working on ABS rule proposals that would allow the interests of investors…
Eric Butler, a former Credit Suisse Group AG broker, has been sentenced to five years in prison for securities fraud. A jury found the ex-stockbroker guilty of misleading clients into thinking that they were buying student loan-backed, low-risk auction-rate securities when they were actually buying ARS that were high-risk and…