A number of diversified stock funds posted significant losses at the end of the January. For example, funds seeking underpriced stocks saw their holdings lose value as did value funds. Here is a list (From Morningstar):
· PIMCO RAE Fundamental Plus EMG (PEFIX)
· Templeton Foreign A
U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren has issued a report in which she claims that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. Department of Justice have been doing a poor job on enforcement when it comes to going after companies and individuals for corporate crimes.
In Rigged Justice: How Weak Enforcement Lets Corporate Offenders off Easy, Warren takes a closer look at what she describes as the 20 worst federal enforcement failures of 2015. The Senator noted that that when federal agencies caught large companies in illegal acts, they failed to take substantial action against them. Instead, companies were fined for sums that in some cases could be written off as tax deductions.
Some of the 2015 cases that Warren Mentions:
• Standard & Poor’s consented to pay $1.375B to the DOJ, DC, and 19 states to resolve charges that it bilked investors by putting out inflated ratings misrepresenting the actual risks involved in collateral debt obligations and residential mortgage-backed securities. Warren Points out that the amount the credit rater paid is less than one-sixth of the fine the government and states had sought against it, and at S & P did not have to admit wrongdoing. No individuals were prosecuted in this case.
• Citigroup (C), Barclays (BARC), JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), and UBS AG (UBS) paid the DOJ $5.6B to resolve claims that their traders colluded together to rig exchange rates. As a result, the firms made billions of dollars while investors and clients suffered. While admissions of guilt were sought, no individuals were prosecuted. Also, the SEC gave the banks waivers so they wouldn’t have to deal with collateral damages from pleading guilty.
A Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) arbitration Panel has ordered brokerage firm Morgan Stanley to pay Morrisa Schiffman (Schiffman) $95,632 for the losses she sustained from investing in Puerto Rico securities. Schiffman, who is a widow from New Jersey, had been using the income from the Puerto Rico investments to supplement her retirement. She accused the firm of making unsuitable recommendations and engaging in negligent supervision and disclose failures.
Bloomberg reports this is one of the first cases involving an investor in the U.S mainland seeking financial recovery related to the Commonwealth’s debt. More than 1,300 FINRA arbitration cases have already been filed in Puerto Rico for residents of the island who sustained heavy losses when Puerto Rico bonds began their fall in 2013.
Puerto Rico bonds were a big draw for investors in and out of Puerto Rico for a number of years because the securities are tax-exempt in the U.S. However, since these bonds dramatically declined in value nearly three years ago, investors have come forward to file arbitration claims against brokerage firms who recommended the bonds to them.
Our securities firm’s analysis has shown that, despite their tax advantages, most Puerto Rico bonds were not suitable for many customers’ investment goals or their portfolios. Brokers should have steered customers away from the Puerto Rico securities instead of toward them. Because of their negligence, there are investors who have lost all of their money in these bonds.
Firms named in recent Puerto Rico muni bond fraud cases include UBS Financial Services Incorporated of Puerto Rico (UBS), Banco Santander, Banco Popular, Stifel Nicolaus & Co. (SF), Bank of America’s (BA) Merrill Lynch, and others.
Puerto Rico owes $70 billion in debt. The Commonwealth recently defaulted on $37 million of payments that were due to certain creditors so that it could pay more of the general obligation debt that the island owes.
Insurers Ambac Assurance Corporation (AMBAC), Financial Guaranty Insurance Company (FGIC), and Assured Guaranty Corp. (Assured) are now suing the territory over the default, for which they’ve had to pay millions of dollars on claims.
Continue Reading ›
Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC (CS) and Barclays Capital Inc. (BARC) will settle their respective cases brought against them by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the New York Attorney General. The firms are accused of violating federal securities laws will running dark pools. At issue is whether the banks disclosed enough information to clients about the trading that took place in their dark pools.
Barclays will pay $35M to the SEC and $70M to the NY AG. It has admitted wrongdoing in the Commission’s case. The bank had said that a Liquidity Profiling feature in its LX dark pool was going to “continuously police” the alternative trading system. The firm also stated that it would conduct weekly surveillance reports to look for order flow that was toxic.
Instead, contends the SEC, Barclays did not continuously regulate the dark pool with the tools it promised it would use nor did it conduct the surveillance runs. The firm also failed to properly disclose that it occasionally overrode the Liquidity Profiling feature when it transferred subscribers from categories that were the most aggressive to the ones that were the least aggressive. Because of this, said the regulator, subscribers that chose to block trading with subscribers that were aggressive ended up dealing with them anyways. Barclays is also accused of misrepresenting the kinds and amounts of market data feeds that it utilized to determine the Best Bid and Offer in the dark pool.
Meantime, Credit Suisse, which is not denying or admitting to the charges against it, will pay $84.3M I total—$24.3M to the SEC as disgorgement and prejudgment interest, along with a $30M penalty, and $30M to the NY AG.
QED Benchmark Management LLC and its hedge fund manager Peter Kuperman will resolve U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charges accusing them of misleading investors about the QED Benchmark LP hedge fund’s historical performance and investment strategy. As part of their settlement they will pay back investors $2.8M in losses. However, by settling they are not admitting or denying the charges.
According to the SEC, the investment advisory firm and Kuperman did not disclose to investors that there were heavy trading losses. They purportedly did this by using a combination of real and hypothetical returns when giving out information about performance history. Marketing strategy included proposing to abide by a scientific stock-selection strategy using algorithms to concentrate on over 280 metrics in the areas of value, momentum, risk, growth, and estimates. The fund was supposed to select investments using the metrics to determine which ones would do better in the market.
QED’s offering memorandum and its limited partnership agreement said that no more than 20% of assets could be invested in any one security, while no more than 5% could be invested in a security that was illiquid. The SEC said that none of these agreements were honored.
Because of these alleged misrepresentations, QED Benchmark and Kuperman were able to secure millions of dollars from investors. The two of them are accused of not following the fund’s stated investment plan and placing most of the assets into one penny stock. Misleading and incomplete disclosures about the investment’s liquidity and value were also purportedly made. In just the first quarter that stock earned a 79% loss. When Kuperman presented potential investors with 2009 results, he did not disclose the bad returns and used hypothetical returns instead.
Continue Reading ›
A Financial Industry Arbitration panel says that Ameriprise Financial (AMP) must pay over $2M to the estate of Glenny B. White for losses related to broker fraud committed by an ex-firm broker. The executor of White’s estate claims that Ameriprise Financial Services did not properly supervise former broker Jeffrey Davis.
In 2014, Davis admitted to stealing money from White and other clients. White was his client for almost ten years before she found out in 2013 that he was stealing funds from her. She died at the age of 91 in 2014.
Davis has since been fired from Ameriprise, and FINRA barred him from the brokerage industry. Last year, he was sentenced to over four years in prison after pleading guilty to wire fraud and admitting to stealing almost $200K from clients.
On Finra’s BrokerCheck report about Davis, it is noted that in at least two cases involving Ameriprise clients the firm had reported to the regulator that their funds were misappropriated.
Continue Reading ›
JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) has consented to pay $995M to settle claims brought by Ambac Financial Group claiming that the insurance company was fooled into insuring hundreds of mortgage bonds that were backed by poor quality loans. As part of the settlement, Ambac will withdraw its opposition to a $4.5B deal reached between the firm and investors, such as Pacific Investment Management Co. (PiMCO) and BlackRock Inc (BLK), over faulty home loans.
One of Ambac’s units was the number two largest bond insurer in the world eight years ago, when the growing number of mortgage defaults caused it to become inundated with claims. The settlement with JPMorgan will conclude two lawsuits over the quality of loans backing mortgage bonds that were sold by Bear Stearns & Co., which JPMorgan purchased in 2008. It also resolves the insurer’s efforts to recover payments of principal plus interest on approximately $3.3B of nearly a dozen MBS trusts sponsored by Bear Stearns unit EMC Mortgage LLC.
According to Bloomberg, this latest settlement opens the door for a judge to approve the settlement between JPMorgan and institutional investors.
The state of Virginia has arrived at a $63M settlement with 11 banks to resolve claims that they bilked the state’s retirement system by purportedly misrepresenting the quality of residential mortgage-backed securities in the run up to the 2008 financial crisis. The resolution settles all claims against the financial firms accused of causing financial harm to the Virginia Retirement system and its taxpayers and pensioners.
The banks involved will pay the following amounts respectively to settle, including:
· UBS Securities for $850K
· Bank of America’s Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith, Inc. and Countrywide Securities Corp. (BAC) for $19.5M
· Credit Suisse Securities (CS) for $1.2M
· RBS Securities (RBS) for $10M
· HSBC Securities (HSBC) For $2.5M
· Barclays Capital (BARC) for $9M
· Goldman Sachs & Co. (GS) for $2.9M
· Morgan Stanley & Co. (MS) for $6.9M
· Citigroup Global Markets (C) for $4.8M
· Deutsche Bank Securities (DB) for $5.6M
The state lost $383M over RMBS it purchased from 2004 to before 2010 and it had to sell most of these securities, which were toxic and constructed on junk mortgages. The settlement is the largest non-healthcare related financial recovery in a case involving Virginia Fraud Against Taxpayers Act-related violations. However, according to the state’s Attorney General Mark Herring, even though the firm is settling it is not denying or admitting liability.
UBS AG (UBS) is reportedly closing down two of its exchange traded note (ETN) funds that were concentrated in master limited partnerships:
· The $11M ETRACS 2x Monthly Leveraged S&P MLP Index ETN (MLPV), which was just issued last July
· The $113M ETRACS 2x Monthly Leveraged Long Alerian MLP Infrastructure ETN (MLPL)
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has filed a motion for summary judgment in its case against Gregory Jones. The Texas lawyer is facing civil charges accusing him of defrauding investors in two securities offerings, including a fracking water filtration deal and an oil and gas exploration venture.
Now, the SEC wants Jones to pay a $2.5M civil penalty, disgorgement of $985K, further disgorgement of $480K, and $17K in prejudgment interest.
The regulator, in its original complaint that it submitted last year, claims that Jones represented Swiss and French investors who invested about $6M in Edwards Exploration. The attorney had a deal with the company in which he would get paid for providing due diligence related to the investors’ shares. The fees he received under the agreement were about $480K. However, claims the Commission, Jones did not tell investors that the money came from their principal cash.
The SEC also says that from ’13 through at least ’14, Jones sold and offered securities that were put out by Aquaphex, which was supposedly a business that was involved in recycling fracking water. He raised about $64K from nine investors. However, contends the Commission, the investment documents for the company included false statements, including a claim that investors could end up making over 115% a year on the securities the they bought.
Continue Reading ›
Investor Lawyers Blog
