Investor Lawyers Blog

Hedge Funds Pursing More than $3B From PriceWaterhousCoopers in MF Global Lawsuit

Published on: March 5, 2017 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

The trial in which a number of hedge funds and creditors are partly blaming PricewaterhouseCoopers for the collapse of MF Global is about to begin in U.S. District Court in New York. The plaintiffs, alleging malpractice involving “erroneous accounting advice,” are seeking over $3B in damages. Former MF Global CEO Jon Corzine, also an Ex-Goldman Sachs (GS) co-chairman and formerly both a New Jersey governor and US senator, is expected to testify in court.

MF Global, once a global financial derivatives broker, is no longer in business. The firm failed in 2011 after customers left when they learned that Corzine had placed big bets on European sovereign debt during a volatile time for the markets. This caused a $1.6B shortfall in client accounts.

Yet, because MF Global employed repo-to-maturity instruments to bet on the debt, this let the firm report the bets as gains, which enhanced the way its revenue looked. Also, clients’ funds were commingled with MF Global’s funds even though they should not have been mixed together.

Dallas, TX Man Pleads Guilty in $131M Broker Fraud Case

Published on: February 28, 2017 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

Herschel “Tress” Knippa III, a Dallas, Texas resident, has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit securities fraud. The former registered broker, who owned a commodities trading firm, was implicated over fraudulent market rigging involving ForceField Energy Inc. (FNRG), which was a supposed global distributor and provider of LED lighting products and solutions. Investors lost $131M because of the scam.

According to court filings and facts submitted at the plea hearing, between 1/2009 and 4/2015, Knippa and others worked together to bilk those who invested in ForceField. The conspirators artificially manipulated the price and volume of ForceField shares by 1) using nominees to buy and sell the stock but without disclosing this to investors and potential investors, 2) manipulating ForceField stock trading to make it seem as if there was real interest and genuine trading volume, and 3) hiding payments made to brokerage firms and stock promoters that marketed and sold the stock.

All the while, Knippa and others claimed that ForceField was an independent company. Also, they used disposable prepaid cell phones, encrypted message applications to communicate, and paid kickbacks in cash.

SEC Charges Chinese Citizens Over Alleged $29M Insider Trading Tied to Comcast-DreamWorks Acquisition

Published on: February 28, 2017 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

The US Securities and Exchange Commission is charging the partner of a Hong Kong-based private equity firm with securities fraud. The regulator claims that Shaohua (Michael) Yin of Summitview Capital Management Ltd. obtained over $56M of DreamWorks Animation SKG stock by using the US brokerage accounts of five Chinese nationals, including his parents.

When DreamWork’s stock price went up 47.3% after news that Comcast was acquiring it went public, the five accounts made $29M from the DreamWorks trades.

The SEC claims that Yin tried to conceal that he was in charge of the five accounts, which had addresses in Palo Alto and Beijing, but the regulator was still able to identify him as the one behind the suspect trading. Prior to becoming a partner at Summitview Capital, Yin worked for UBS (UBS) and private equity firm Warburg Pincus Asia LLC.

Elder Financial Fraud: Ex-K.C. Ward Financial Rep. Barred Over $15M in Unsuitable Investments

Published on: February 27, 2017 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

FINRA Bars Registered Rep For $15M In Unauthorized Trades

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority has barred Craig David Dima, a former registered representative with KC Ward Financial, for making about $15M in unsuitable and unauthorized trades in the account of a 73-year-old retiree. According to the self-regulatory organization, there were 11 times when Dima sold nearly all of the customer’s stock in Colgate-Palmolive that she’d accrued from working with the company for nearly thirty years and he did that without permission.

After the elderly client told Dima not to sell the stock, he proceeded to sell them anyways. When the customer confronted Dima, he purportedly misrepresented that a computer or technical mistake had caused the sale. Meantime, the client was “deprived” of the “substantial dividends” from the Colgate shares she used to own. Dima charged the customer over $375K in fees, mark-downs, and mark-ups.

By settling, Dima is not denying or admitting to FINRA’s charges of elder financial fraud.

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Oceanografía Sues Citigroup, Claims Alleged Multi-Million Dollar Fraud at Banamex

Published on: February 27, 2017 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

Oceanografía, formerly the biggest oil and gas company in Latin America, is accusing Citigroup (C) of using it to detract from probes into the fraud involving Banamex, which is Citibank’s Mexican subsidiary. Oceanografía collapsed in 2014.

Citigroup is accused of granting a $585M credit line to Oceanografía so that the latter could get hundreds of millions of dollars in cash advances for work by Pemex, an oil company owned by Mexico. However in February 2014, Pemex notified Citigroup that about $400M in Oceanografía invoices, which were supposed to secure the cash advances, had been forged, possibly by a Banamex employee. Because of this, Citibank cancelled Oceanografía’s credit line and the oil and gas company collapsed.

Oceanografía maintains that it never forged the invoices nor did it have cause for such illegal action.

Criminal Securities Fraud: Ex- CEO Extradited From Namibia is Sentenced to 30-Months, Long Island “Mini Madoff’s Associate Goes to Prison Over $400M Scheme, and the Trial of Two Ex-Barclays Traders is Underway in the UK

Published on: February 26, 2017 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

Libor Trial Of Two-Ex Barclays Traders Begins
Ryan Reich and Stylianos Contogoulas are on trial in London on criminal charges accusing them of rigging the US dollar Libor. According to prosecutors, from ’05-’07, the two ex-Barclays Plc (BARC) traders conspired to manipulate the interest-rate benchmark in order to profit illegally.

Contogoulas and Reich have pleaded not guilty to the criminal charges. Two other ex-Barclays employees, Jonathan Mathew and Peter Johnson, were previously convicted for rigging Libor. They were tasked with submitting Libor rates.

16 banks are responsible for determining the Libor dollar rate every day. They do this by estimating how much it would cost to borrow from one another over different periods. The Libor dollar rate is linked to mortgages and loans and other financial products. Already, a number of big banks have collectively paid several billion dollars for their role in Libor manipulation.

Securities Cases: Broidy Wealth Management Advisors Founder Pleads Guilty to Fraud, Bondholders File Arbitration Claim Against BOK Financial, and SEC Files Complaint in $5M Pyramid Scam

Published on: February 26, 2017 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

RIA Misappropriated Over $865K and Withdrew $640K in Excess Fees, Say Prosecutors
Broidy Wealth Advisors CEO Mark Broidy has pleaded guilty to taking $640K in excess management fees from clients and misappropriating over $864K in stock that were in trusts of which he was the trustee. Now, the registered investment advisor must make restitutions to those whom he defrauded. He could end up serving up to five years behind barsamong other penalties.

According to the Justice Department, from around 11/2010 to 7/2016 Broidy billed more than what he was allowed to in compensation, which caused three clients to pay more than $640K in excess fees. He concealed his theft by falsifying those clients’ IRS Form 1099s.

After one client demanded that Broidy pay back the stolen funds the latter allegedly sold over $865K of stock from another client’s trust accounts, which were for that person’s children. Broidy also suggested that several clients invest in startups with which he had deals to pay him part of any money he raised on the companies’ behalf. The clients didn’t know about these arrangements.

As General Obligation Bondholders Get Go Ahead on Their Bond Fraud Case Against Puerto Rico, COFINA Creditors Seek to Intervene

Published on: February 25, 2017 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

A federal judge has ruled that general obligation bondholders in Puerto Rico may go ahead with a securities fraud lawsuit arguing that the U.S. territory’s government has to pay them what they are owed even as it pays off other bondholders and workers and restructures its nearly $70 billion of debt. U.S. District Court Judge Francisco Besosa said the bondholders’ case could proceed despite a new law that has placed a stay on the majority of creditors’ legal actions brought against Puerto Rico.

Owners of general obligation bonds which includes individuals and hedge funds such as Monarch and Aurelius, are arguing that Puerto Rico general obligation bonds are supposed to be constitutionally guaranteed, therefore other Puerto Rico obligations cannot be paid before general obligation bondholders. Judge Besosa said that because the general obligation bondholders’ debt lawsuit does not seek to get any kind of payment from the territory or confiscate commonwealth property, the case should be exempted from the stay.

Following Judge Besosa’s ruling, creditors of COFINA bonds, Puerto Rico’s sales tax authority, are now asking a federal court to keep the island’s government from being told to redirect bond payments to the general bond holders. The COFINA plaintiff group, which includes funds holding more than $2 billion in debt and also hedge funds such as Canyon Capital and Goldentree, contend that the general obligation bondholders’ claims are “self-serving” and without merit.

Institutional Investor’s CDO Fraud Case Against Patriarch Partners, Lynn Tilton to Proceed

Published on: February 24, 2017 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

The New York State Supreme Court has ruled that the $45M institutional investor fraud case against Patriarch Partners and owner Lynn Tilton may proceed. The financier had sought to have the fraud charges against her dropped.

The plaintiff is Norddeutsche Landesbank Girozentrale. The German bank, known as Nord/LG, invested in Tilton’s Zohar debt fund. Nord/LG later accused Tilton of misrepresenting the fund’s structure and brought a collateralized debt obligation lawsuit against her and her firm.

The German bank contends that it didn’t know that fraud might have occurred until the US Securities and Exchange Commission brought a civil case against Tilton and her firm in 2015. The regulator wants disgorgement of about $200M in allegedly bogus fees that Tilton and Patriarch purportedly collected for their services. The SEc also wants to bar Tilton from the industry.

Institutional Investor’s CDO Fraud Case Against Patriarch Partners, Lynn Tilton to Proceed

Published on: February 24, 2017 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

The New York State Supreme Court has ruled that the $45M institutional investor fraud case against Patriarch Partners and owner Lynn Tilton may proceed. The financier had sought to have the fraud charges against her dropped.

The plaintiff is Norddeutsche Landesbank Girozentrale. The German bank, known as Nord/LG, invested in Tilton’s Zohar debt fund. Nord/LG later accused Tilton of misrepresenting the fund’s structure and brought a collateralized debt obligation lawsuit against her and her firm.

The German bank contends that it didn’t know that fraud might have occurred until the US Securities and Exchange Commission brought a civil case against Tilton and her firm in 2015. The regulator wants disgorgement of about $200M in allegedly bogus fees that Tilton and Patriarch purportedly collected for their services. The SEc also wants to bar Tilton from the industry.