Eugene M. Plotkin, a former Goldman Sachs associate, will serve 57 months in prison for his involvement in insider trading. Plotkin pleaded guilty to conspiracy and eight counts of insider trading for his role in a number of insider trading scams that generated over $6 million in illegal gains. The…
State Street Corp. announced it established a pre-tax reserve of $618 million billion “to address legal exposure and other costs associated with the under-performance of fixed-income strategies managed by the company’s investment management arm,” blaming exposure to subprime mortgages. The company referenced “customer concerns as to whether the execution of…
Last month, brokerage firm Morgan Keegan made an undisclosed payment to the Indiana Children’s Wish Fund to settle an arbitration dispute. The wish granting organization had lost $48,000 in a mutual fund that was heavily invested in mortgage securities. The Indiana Children’s Wish Fund has about $1 million in assets.…
Questar Capital Corp’s senior vice president of mergers and acquisitions claims he too was victim of a $250 million alleged Ponzi scheme that affected up to 1,200 investors-many senior citizens residing in Michigan, California, Illinois, New York, Florida, New Jersey, and Ohio. The Securities and Exchange Commission charged Edward May…
The Securities and Exchange Commission is suing two ex-Morgan Stanley advisers for allegedly circumventing the market timing restrictions of 50 mutual fund companies, and, as a result, allegedly defrauding some 50 mutual fund companies. Between January 2002 and August 2003, Former advisers Darryl Goldstein and Christopher O’Donnell earned about $1…
The director of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Investment Management Division is calling for mutual funds to rename their 75 basis point “distribution fee” and call it a “sales charge”-regardless of whether the sales charge is deducted right away or over a period of time. At the Investment Company Institute’s…
A class securities fraud lawsuit against Goldman Sachs & Co. was dismissed by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. The lawsuit had charged that a Goldman Sachs & Co. senior analyst issued false research reports with inflated projections of Exodus Communications Inc.’s financial growth on…
A former Columbia University student is suing Citibank and Columbia University for what he is calling “modern-day slavery,” for allegedly colluding to charge unreasonably high interest rates on student loans. Brian Baxter, 57, is now a licensed psychotherapist and a social worker. He graduated from Columbia University in the 1990’s…
On December 12, The North American Securities Administrators Association told the Senate Judiciary Constitution Subcommittee says that it is calling for a voluntary securities arbitration system. NASAA also approves of the proposed Arbitration Fairness Act (S. 1782). NASAA says that right now, nearly every broker-dealer has to include a pre-dispute…
New York Stock Regulation Inc. announced its enforcement actions against four trading companies. The regulator says that Ronin Capital, LLC mismarked over 8,300 short orders because of inadequate supervisory procedures and supervision. The company continued to mismark short orders even after the SEC brought the violation to its attention. Ronin…