Investor Lawyers Blog

SEC Issues Over $325K Whistleblower Award to Ex-Investment Firm Employee Who Provided Fraud Tip

Published on: November 4, 2015 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

The Securities and Exchange Commission is awarding over $325K to an ex-investment firm employee who notified the regulator about misconduct that had been going on at his former employer. The information he provided allowed the SEC’s enforcement staff to investigate and discover the extent of the fraud.

In addition to providing specific details about the misconduct, the whistleblower identified who was involved in the fraud. However, said the Commission, if the whistleblower had come forward with the information sooner rather than waiting until after departing the investment firm, the award for exposing the fraud may have been greater.

In a statement, SEC Enforcement Division Director Andrew Ceresney spoke about how it is important for corporate insiders who are aware that there have been securities law violations to report what they know right away so that the misconduct can be stopped and investors are protected from any or further harm. He noted that the Dodd-Frank Act provides whistleblowers with substantial protections and incentives for tipping the agency about suspected wrongdoing.

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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SEC Probes Advisers With Access to Client Retirement Accounts, Approves Crowdfunding Rules Connecting Investors with Small Businesses

Published on: October 31, 2015 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

According to InvestmentNews, the Securities and Exchange Commission is looking at instances in which advisers have access to their clients’ financial accounts that they don’t manage. The SEC wants to make sure that these advisors are unable to take distributions from these accounts if they don’t have custody over them.

The SEC has been taking a closer look at custody since the Bernard Madoff Ponzi scam that bilked investors billions of dollars. Madoff was in control of most of his clients’ money.

In 2013, the regulator, seeking to stave off the next big investor scheme, noted that red flags were raised for 140 firms that were examined in 2012 because of they way they had access to or held the assets of clients. “Significant deficiencies” were found.
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Securities News: J.P. Morgan Face Restrictions on Raising Clients Funds In the Wake of Improper Product Disclosures to Investments, Intel Sued Over Improperly Investing 401K Funds, and Citigroup, Bank of America, Other Big Banks Get New Bailout Rules

Published on: October 30, 2015 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

SEC Seeks to Limit JP Morgan’s Ability to Raise Client Money
An Over $200K settlement between J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. (JPM) and regulators has stalled because of efforts by federal regulators to limit the firm’s ability to raise money for clients. The move is an attempt to place a wider variety of consequences on financial firms accused of breaking regulations.

J.P. Morgan had settled allegations accusing it of failing to make proper disclosures when marketing its investment products to clients over the products offered by competitors. Now, the SEC wants the firm to say yes to limits on its ability to sell bonds or stocks through private placements for several years. Such a restriction could hamper its private bank’s efforts to raise funds for hedge funds and other clients through a key channel or sell bonds or stocks privately to rich investors and other sophisticated investors.

While banks are allowed to conduct private placement offerings, firms that violate the rules that these securities are under will lose privilege unless they are given a waiver.

Lawsuit Accuses Intel of Investing 401K Monies Improperly
An ex-Intel Corp. employee is suing company officials for breach of fiduciary duty. According to Christopher M. Sulyma, the company invested defined 401K participants’ retirement funds in high risk, costly private equity funds and hedge funds.

Financial Adviser is Sentenced in $1.2B Rothstein Ponzi Scam

Published on: October 28, 2015 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

Michael Szafranski, the financial adviser of Ponzi mastermind Scott Rothstein, has been sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison for wire fraud. Szafranski, who pled guilty, had already paid $6.5M of restitution to victims of the $1.2B financial fraud through the trustee handling the bankruptcy of Rothstein’s law firm Rothstein Rosenfeldt Adler.

The indictment against Szafranski referred to him as the “independent asset verifier” of the scam. He is accuse of persuading investors to put over $200M into the Ponzi scheme.

Meantime, Rothstein, an attorney, was sentenced to fifty years behind bars in 2010 for money laundering, wire fraud, and racketeering. He was accused of selling discounted stakes in bogus settlements of whistleblower and sexual harassment cases that ranged from hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars. Investors were told they would get the proceeds when the lawsuits were resolved. Instead, their money was used to bankroll his firm, pay for his expensive lifestyle, and purchase political influence. Rothstein would take newer investors’ money to pay older investors. He and co-conspirators allegedly generated bogus bank statements, settlements, and personal guarantees.

Also, according to InvestmentNews, Rothstein directed employees of his law firm to give some of the money to the campaigns of certain state, local, and federal politicians. These employees were told to do this in a way that allowed him to avoid limits on these types of donations while concealing where the money was coming from. After the allegations against Rothstein became known to the public, many of the campaigns returned the funds.
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Goldman Consents to Three-Year Bar On Certain Advisory Work, Settles Leak Case with NY Fed for $50M

Published on: October 28, 2015 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) will pay a $50M fine to the New York Federal Reserve as part of a settlement over document leaks. The firm also consented to be barred from some advisory work in the state for three years. It admits that it did not properly supervise an employee.

The leak involves former Fed employee Rohit Bansal who worked for Goldman. According to a statement from the New York Department of Financial Services, while there he was assigned to work with a midsized bank as his client. He’d regulated the same bank while at the Fed—this was a bank that the Fed had specifically told him he couldn’t work with until early this year.

Bansal, however, held about 20 meetings with Jason Gross, a former co-worker at the Fed, who purportedly gave him about 35 documents with confidential regulatory information. Bansal is accused of using those documents to assist the Goldman client.

After Goldman management found out about the way he had gotten the confidential information, they fired him and started their own probe. (Meantime, sources tell Bloomberg, the Fed also let go of Gross.)

Massachusetts Regulator Says Fidelity Let Unregistered Advisers Trade on Its Broker-Dealer Platform

Published on: October 27, 2015 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

Commonwealth William Galvin has filed an administrative complaint against Fidelity Brokerage Services. The firm is accused of letting at least 13 unregistered investment advisers trade on its broker-dealer platform, which caused Fidelity and the advisers to earn fees.

This practice, which involved unregistered advisers having their clients turn in trade authorizations to the brokerage firm so that they could access the accounts, purportedly took place for more than ten years beginning in 2005. For example, the state regulator contends that over twenty Fidelity customers paid one unregistered investment adviser $732,000 in fees over ten years in which he made over 12,000 trades in his account and nearly 29,000 trades in client accounts.

Galvin believes that Fidelity knew that this person was acting as an unregistered adviser, even at one point pressing him to register. However, claims the regulator, despite remaining unregistered, the trader was rewarded because of referrals he made to the broker-dealer. Seven Fidelity customers paid him $732,000 as compensation for his services.
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Edward Jones, AXA Advisors, Stifel Nicolaus, and Others to Pay $13M to Retirement Accounts, Charities for Mutual Fund Overcharges

Published on: October 27, 2015 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority says that another five firms must pay restitution to specific retirement and charitable accounts for overcharging them for mutual funds. Edward D. Jones will pay $13.5M, Stifel Nicolaus (SF) will pay $2.9M, AXA Advisors will pay $600K, Janney Montgomery Scott will pay $1.2M, and Stephens Inc. will pay $15K.

The announcement comes just a few months after the self-regulatory organization fined five other firms over $30M for similar violations. Those firms were LPL Financial LLC (LPL), Raymond James Financial Services (RJF), Raymond James & Associates, Wells Fargo Advisors Financial Network, LLC (WFC), and Wells Fargo Advisors, LLC. Due to their purported oversight, over 50,000 charitable organizations and retirement accounts ended up paying too much for their mutual fund shares.

CFTC Sues Chicago Trader and 3RedTrading for Spoofing

Published on: October 26, 2015 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission is suing 3RedTrading LLC and its owner Chicago broker Igor Oystracher for allegedly engaging in spoofing on some of the largest exchanges in the world. The spoofing purportedly took place over 51 trading days between 12/11 and 1/14 on the Chicago Board Options Exchange, the New York Mercantile Exchange, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, and the Commodity Exchange.

The CFTC claims that Oystacher and 3Red gave the impression of “false market depth” to benefit themselves while hurting other market participants. The regulator believes that the trader spoofed in futures markets that were based on natural gas, copper, an options volatility index, and the S&P 500 equity index.

According to the complaint, 3Red and Oystacher made large passive orders on one side of the market at (or close to) the best bid or offer price, which they would then cancel before executing the trades. The purported orders were made through accounts belonging to 3Red.

Oystacher is accused of using “avoid orders that cross,” a feature on his trading software, while putting a big resting order on one side of the market to deceive others into believing that prices were about to drop or go up. However, because he was using that particular feature, the small order he’d make on the other side of the market would cancel the big resting one within five milliseconds. As a result, says the CFTC, 3Red and Oystacher were able to sell or buy futures contracts in amounts and at price levels that otherwise would not have been available to them if they hadn’t engaged in spoofing.

Bloomberg reports that a source said last month that already a grand jury has heard testimony about Oystacher and his alleged activities. Two other sources told the media outlet that federal prosecutors might be bringing criminal charges.
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Securities Enforcement: DBSR to Pay Almost $6M to Settle SEC Related to Ratings Methodology for RMBSs and Re-REMICs, FINRA Censures NFP Advisor Services for Inadequate Supervision of Private Securities Transactions

Published on: October 25, 2015 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

Credit Rater Accused of Misrepresenting Surveillance Approach for Complex Securities
Credit rating agency DBSR Inc. will pay nearly $6 million to settle Securities and Exchange Commission charges. The regulator is accusing the credit rater of misrepresenting the surveillance method it used for rating certain kinds of complex financial instruments over a three-year period.

In its yearly examination of DBSR, The agency’s Office of Credit Ratings found that the credit rating agency misrepresented that it would each month monitor its current ratings of re-securitized real estate mortgage investment conduits and residential mortgage-backed securities. DBSR said it did this via a three-step quantitative analysis and a surveillance committee review of each rating.

However, said the SEC, the firm failed to perform this monthly scrutiny and did not have its committee look at each rating every month. Instead, when the committee would get together it would only examine a limited subset of outstanding Re-REMIC and RMBS ratings. The credit rater lacked the sufficient technological resources and staffing for performing surveillance for all outstanding Re-REMIC ratings and RMBS each month. The SEC also said that DBRS failed to disclose modifications to specific surveillance assumptions even though its methodology said that is what it would do.

As part of the settlement, DBRS consented to disgorge over $2.7M in rating surveillance fees that it received from ’09 to ’11 in addition to prejudgment interest. It consented to paying a $2.925M penalty and will hire an independent consultant to look at its internal controls, make recommendations for how to improve them, and other matters.

NFP Advisor Services to Pay $500K to FINRA Over Inadequate Supervision
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority has censured NFP Advisor Services for failing to properly supervise its registered representatives when they conducted private securities transactions. These representatives were registered not just with the firm but also with a registered investment advisor.