FINRA

SEC Approves Change to FINRA’s BrokerCheck On When to Publish Firings

Published on: December 3, 2015 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

The Securities and Exchange Commission has approved the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority’s plan to shorten the waiting period for when certain information reported on Form U5 can be released on BrokerCheck.com from 15 days to three days. This includes information about broker firings. The modification will go into effect on December 12.

Brokerage firms use Form U5 to give notice of when a broker has been let go. This notification is published on BrokerCheck, which is a public database that includes background information about registered brokers, as well whether any of them have a disciplinary history and what that may be.

The 15 days was so that brokers could have time to explain why they were fired. FINRA, however, has now decided that it is important to notify the public of such terminations sooner than that so that the investors who are thinking hiring these brokers receive this employment history right away. The self-regulatory organization says that it believes three business days still gives a broker a chance to comment on his/her firing.

BrokerCheck.com is an excellent resource for looking up information about a broker and his/her history. It’s important as an investor that you do your due diligence when considering whether to have someone handle your investments and finances. You can also get information about a broker from the Central Registration Depository, which is a computerized database. Another way to find out about a broker is to call your state securities regulator and request access to his/her registration, disciplinary, and employment information. You can get information about how to reach your state regulator through the North American Securities Administrators Association’s website.
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Securities Fraud Cases: Wedbush to Pay $813K Over Investment Fraud Allegations, SEC Files Pump-and-Dump Charges in Marley Coffee Case, and CFTC Accuses IB Capital of Soliciting $50M for Forex Trading While Unregistered

Published on: November 18, 2015 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

Wedbush to Pay Trusts, Family Members Over $813,000
A Financial Industry Regulatory Authority Panel says that Wedbush securities and investment advisor Kevin Thomas Scarpelli must jointly and severally pay several investors over $813,000 to resolve allegations of professional negligence and failure to supervise related to investments made in Natural Resources USA Corp. The respondents denied the allegations and asked that the claims be thrown own.

After considering the pleadings, evidence, and testimony, the panel decided that Wedbush and Scarpelli must pay claimants: Mary L. Riscornia TTEE nearly $263,000, Jennifer Tiscornia over $252,313, Nicolas E. Toussaint over $55,300, Nicolas E. Toussaint TTEE over $1800, Michael J. Nicolai over $18,4000, Michael Nicolai TTEE over $156,221, Jeffrey M. Nicolai over $22,154, Katherine M. Nicolai over $22,000 and Alexandria P. Nicolai over $22,000 in damages, interest, legal fees, and costs. The FINRA panel denied Scarpelli’s request to have his record expunged of this securities case.

SEC Files Charges in $78M Pump-and-Dump Scam Involving Jammin’ Java Stock, Marley Trademark
The Securities and Exchange Commission is accusing ex-Jammin’ Java CEO Shane Whittle of masterminding a $78 million pump-and-dump scam involving the company’s shares. Jammin’ Java operates Marley Coffee, which uses the late reggae legend Bob Marley’s trademark to sell products.

According to the regulator, Whittle used a reverse merger to-in secret-get control of millions of Jammin’ Java shares, which he then spread to offshore entities under the control of Michael Sun, Wayne Weaver, and René Berlinger. The shares were dumped on the public after their price rose in the wake of bogus promotional campaigns. Whittle purportedly hid the scam by making misleading omissions and statements in reports submitted to the SEC.
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FINRA Awards First United Bank & Trust Over $11.5M in Arbitration Case Against First Horizon National Involving CODs and Other Securities

Published on: November 10, 2015 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

A Financial Industry Regulatory Authority arbitration panel has awarded First United Bank & Trust and First United Corp. over $11.5M in their securities fraud case against FTN Financial Securities Corp., Hugh James Boone, and Franklin Benjamin Kennedy. The bank is claiming unsuitable investments, misrepresentations, omission, breach of fiduciary duty, failure to supervise, breach of implied contract, and common law fraud involving the claimants’ purchase of preferred term securities, trust preferred securities, and other collateralized debt obligations. Two of the preferred term securities at issue are the PreTSL Notes, also known as the I-PreTSLI notes, and the PreTSL XVII.

The claimants said that that purchase of the PreTSL Notes were among a number of transactions in their leverage strategy. They said that the respondents were aware that the notes had deteriorated after they were issued but did not inform the claimants. The respondents denied the claimants’ allegations. Boone and Kennedy in their response said that they acted properly as financial adviser.

Securities Headlines: FINRA Seeking to Fine MetLife Over Variable Annuity Sales, SEC Accuses Scottish Trader of Sending Fake Tweets, Market Rigging, and Judge Orders Man to Stop Crowdfunding Fraud

Published on: November 7, 2015 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

FINRA Plans to Fine MetLife for Purported Variable Annuities Violations
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority is looking to impose a significant fine against MetLife’s broker-dealer unit related to possible violations involving variable annuities. The company is cooperating with the regulator’s probe, which is looking at alleged suitability, misrepresentation, and supervision issues related to the selling and replacements of variable annuities.

According to MetLife’s quarterly regulatory filing, FINRA told the insurance giant that it plans to recommend disciplinary action. InvestmentNews reports that in an e-mailed statement, MetLife spokesperson John Calagna said that the company did not agree with the conclusions reached by the regulator and plans to defend itself.

SEC Charges Scottish Trader with Over Market Rigging Involving False Tweets
The Securities and Exchange Commission has filed securities fraud charges against James Alan Craig of Scotland for allegedly filing false tweets that caused sharp declines in the stock prices of two companies, even causing one of them to experience a trading halt. The regulator said that Craig sent out false statements via Twitter on accounts that he deceptively set up to make them look like legitimate Twitter accounts of known securities research firms.

According to the SEC’s complaint, Craig’s first bogus tweets caused the share price of one company to drop 28% until Nasdaq temporarily stopped trading. The next day, he sent out false tweets about another company that led to a 16% drop in the share prices of that company. Both days he purchased and sold shares of the companies he targeted to try to profit from the sharp price changes. He was mostly successful in his efforts.
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FINRA Cautions Against Binary Options and Their Risk of Fraud

Published on: November 2, 2015 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority has issued a warning about the risks involved with binary options trading. The alert comes in the wake of numerous calls the regulator has received through its Securities Helpline for Seniors – HELPS™. According to callers, there are business entities claiming to be binary options trading firms that are failing to deposit investors’ funds into their accounts, refusing to give investors back their money, or demanding a payment fee to make such a refund. One fraudster even purportedly pretended to be a regulator organization and demanded that investor pay money for taking part in an allegedly illegal binary options trading.

FINRA wants investors to be especially careful of non-US companies that offer binary options trading platforms, especially trading applications with names implying easy wealth, as well as demo accounts that give users a chance to try binary potions tradings without risking assets.

The self-regulatory organization said that these types of accounts may act as bait to get investors to ultimately fund a “real” account. Exposure to such accounts may also expose people to identity theft as they hand over personal information and other details.
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FINRA Orders 12 Financial Firms to Pay $6.7M for Not Charging UIT Purchase Discounts

Published on: October 20, 2015 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

Twelve financial firms will pay over $4 million in restitution and fines of over $2.6M for purportedly not applying sales charge discounts to the sale of Unit Investment Trusts. The fines are also for supposed supervisory failures.

The firms and the payments they will make include:

• First Allied Securities, Inc., which will pay over $689K in restitution and a $325K fine.

Santander Securities to Pay $6.4M Over Puerto Rico Muni Bond and Closed-End Fund Sales

Published on: October 13, 2015 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) says that it is ordering Santander Securities LLC (Santander) to pay $6.4M for supervisory failures involving the sale of Puerto Rico Municipal Bonds and Puerto Rico closed-end funds. Of the payment to FINRA, $2 million is a fine and censure and over $4.3 million is customer restitution.

The restitution will go toward certain customers who were solicited to buy the municipal bonds. Santander will pay $121,000 and make rescission offers to repurchase the securities from certain customers that were affected by the firm’s purported failure to supervise employees while they were trading.

FINRA said that between December 2012 and October 2013, Santander failed to make sure that its proprietary product risk-classification tool accurately reflected the risks of investing in Puerto Rico bonds. The regulator contends that the systems and procedures that were in place at Santander did not mandate an evaluation or review of this tool, which is what its representatives used when recommending financial products to customers.

For example, said FINRA, when “significant market events” occurred, such as when credit rating agency Moody’s downgraded a number of Puerto Rico bonds-including Puerto Rico General Obligation bonds-to a level just above junk, Santander did not re-examine the tool’s risk classifications for the bonds. Instead, one day after the credit rating agency issued its ratings downgrade, the firm stopped buying the municipal bonds that its customers in Puerto Rico wanted to sell and ramped up its efforts to lower the firm’s own Puerto Rico municipal bond inventory.
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SEC Approves Rule Requiring Firms, Brokers Link to BrokerCheck

Published on: October 10, 2015 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

Over two years after it was initially proposed, a FINRA rule requiring that broker-dealers include a link to the self-regulatory organization’s BrokerCheck database has been approved by the Securities and Exchange Commission. The rule slated to go into effect, at the latest, at 180 days after the FINRA regulatory notice is published in the Federal Register. The deadline for publishing the notice is December 7, 2015.

Per the rule, a brokerage firm will have to include an obvious reference and hyperlink to the front page of FINRA’s BrokerCheck.com. Links to BrokerCheck would also have to be included on the profile pages of each broker.

FINRA has been trying to make retail investors more aware that BrokerCheck exists. The online database includes the work history of every registered broker, where they are registered, and other information, such as if they’ve been subject to disciplinary measures or named on previous securities cases.

A previous version of the proposed rule had called for LinkedIn and Twitter profiles of brokers to also include links back to BrokerCheck. However, rather than link directly to that home page, the hyperlink would have taken an investor to the BrokerCheck profile of a particular representative. Many in the industry, however, were strongly opposed to that mandate.
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FINRA Fines Voya Financial, J.P. Turner, Cetera, and Other Firms For Not Discounting Big REIT Sales

Published on: October 10, 2015 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority has fined six independent brokerage firms for not giving clients the proper discounts on big sales of business development companies and real estate investment trusts. According to InvestmentNews, the self-regulatory organization has been scrutinizing whether financial firms are giving the appropriate discounts, also known as breakpoint discounts to clients.

When the sale of certain nontraded real estate investment trusts is anywhere from over $500K up to $1 million, a discount is usually available. This means that the REIT’s price, which is typically at $10/share with the broker getting a 70 cent commission, can go down to $9.90/share and a commission of 60 cents.

FINRA said that J.P. Turner, Voya Financial Inc. (VOYA), Transamerica Financial Advisors Inc., Investacorp., National Planning Corp., and Cetera Investment Services did not identify and put into effect volume discounts for certain eligible purchase of BDCs and non-traded REITs. Because of this, said the SRO, customers paid sales charges that were too high. Now, all six firms will have to pay restitution to the clients that were affected.

Securities Headlines: Halcyon Cabot Partners is Expelled from Industry by FINRA, Blackstone Settles Disclosure Failure Charges for Nearly $39M, SEC Approves Proposal to Improve Transparency for OTC Equity Securities

Published on: October 8, 2015 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

FINRA Expels Halcyon Cabot, Bars Chief Executives
Halcyon Cabot Partners, Ltd. has been expelled by FINRA. The regulator also has barred its CEO Michael Morris and CCO Ronald Heineman from the securities industry. The reasons for the expulsion and bars include fraud, abusive sales practices, the concealment of private placement fee kickbacks, and other purported acts.

According to the self-regulatory organization, Halcyon, the two men, and previously barred former registered rep. Craig Josephberg hid the discount the issuer gave to a venture capital firm when it bought a private placement in a company. The scam was executed using a fake placement fee deal after the venture capital firm agreed to buy all the offerings. However, FINRA said, because there already was a buyer, Halcyon didn’t conduct any work and gave back nearly all of its $1.75M fee to the investor via bogus consulting agreements. As a result, the company was able to hide that its shares were sold at a reduced rate.

FINRA contends that Halcyon did not properly supervise Josephberg, who was making unauthorized trades and churning retail accounts. The regulator is accusing Morris of falsifying Halcyon’s records to hide the securities sales that Josephberg made in states where he wasn’t registered, including Texas.

Blackstone Group to Pay Almost $39M Over Disclosure Failures
The Securities and Exchange Commission said that three private equity fund advisers that belong to The Blackstone Group have consented to pay close to $39 million to resolve charges that they did not fully inform investors about the benefits they received from discounts on legal fees and accelerated monitoring fees. While Blackstone is settling and has consented to the entry of the regulator’s order stating that it breached its fiduciary duty, failed to put into place policies and procedures that were reasonably designed, and failed to correctly disclose information to investors of the funds, it is not denying or admitting to allegations.

The three fund advisers are:

• Blackstone Management Partners
• Blackstone Management Partners IV
• Blackstone Management Partners II