Investor Lawyers Blog

Insider Trading Charges Filed Against 32 Defendants in Hacking Scam Involving Newswire Services

Published on: August 17, 2015 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

The Securities and Exchange Commission has filed financial fraud charges against 32 defendants accused of insider trading by using information obtained from newswire services that were hacked. Two Ukrainians and 30 other defendants in the U.S. and abroad are accused of making $100 million in illegal gains.

According to the regulator, for about five years, Oleksandr Ieremenko and Ivan Turchynov, both from Ukraine, hacked in to at least two newswire services and stole hundreds of corporate earnings announcements before they were issued to the public. Bloomberg says the services are Business Wire, Marketwired, and PRNewswire Association LLC.

The suspected hackers are accused of grabbing over 150,000 news releases that allowed them to anticipate movements in the stock market and make trades that would turn a profit. They also purportedly set up a secret web-based location to transmit the stolen information to traders in numerous countries and U.S. states.

The two men are accused of concealing intrusions with proxy servers to hide their identities and pretending to be newswire service employees and customers. Turchynov and Ieremenko are also accused of using a video highlighting the theft of the earnings data prior to public release to recruit traders.

UBS Puerto Rico Branch Manager Had Warned that Brokers Were Pushing Improper Loan Practices

Published on: August 16, 2015 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

According to Reuters, internal correspondence records show that in 2012, a former branch manager at UBS Puerto Rico (UBS) warned the Swiss banking giant’s officials that its brokers were encouraging customers to get involved in improper loan practices. In a number of emails, Carlos Capacete, who was a branch manager at the time, wrote to at least two bank officers noting his suspicions of misconduct.

Reuters says that in the documents it reviewed, Capacete told regional manager Doel Garcia that he had encouraged Mariela Torres, a UBS Puerto Rico compliance director, to look into suspect loans. In another email, Capacete followed up with his inquiry to see if the loans had been investigated for possible misuse involving the bank’s credit lines.

Then, in yet another email, Capacete documented what he knew about the loans, which he believed were fraudulent, explained how he discovered the purported wrongdoing, and noted his efforts to notify Torres about the alleged misconduct. Capacete also wrote that a UBS attorney had told him that the firm had conducted an audit and found that his suspicions were wrong.

Despite this alleged audit, late last year UBS reached a $5.2 million municipal bond settlement with Puerto Rico’s Office of the Commissioner of Financial Institutions to resolve allegations of improper loan practices. The bank settled that case without denying or admitting to the charges. It did, however, consent to enhancing its supervision of several brokers whom regulators said may have steered clients toward improperly borrowing money to purchase more funds. UBS also terminated a broker for the same allegations and received an arbitration award of $2.5 million against it in an early case concerning the same broker.
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Investors Could Get Hurt By REM, and Other ETFs Impacted by Growing Short-Term Rates

Published on: August 15, 2015 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

In the last five years, artificially low interest rates have resulted in yield hungry investors being drawn to investments such as iShares Mortgage Real Estate Capped ETF, an exchange-traded fund that trades under the symbol REM. Since 2010, this ETF has gathered over $1 Billion in assets, in part because of its 14% dividend.

Unlike older and more traditional REIT ETFs, REM does not own companies that possess properties. Instead, the exchange-traded fund puts its money in financial firms that borrow at short-term rates and buy long-term mortgage securities while making a profit from the difference and passing that over as income. All this creates the 14% yield.

Unfortunately, with the increased likelihood of a Fed rate hike, the yield curve has started to become flat, reducing the spread that creates the 14% yield for REM. Also, short-term rates have started going up faster than long-term ones. The result has been that REM’s price has started to drop. And, if the central bank were to initiate a rate hike, that 14% yield and REM’s performance could end up in even more trouble. Bloomberg says that already REM has been down 5% since the Memorial Day weekend.

According to Shepherd Smith Edwards and Kantas Partner and Securities Fraud Attorney Sam Edwards, “Funds like REM seem very attractive to investors, especially when rates are so low. The risk of a fund like REM is far greater than traditional REIT investments and will suffer greatly in a rising interest rate environment. The vast majority of investors in funds such as this do not comprehend the risk of such a complicated strategy and find out too late they were taking more risk than was appropriate.”
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Ex-Caldwell Broker is Barred by FINRA for Churning Accounts

Published on: August 14, 2015 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority has permanently barred ex-Caldwell International Securities Corp. broker Richard Adams from the industry. Adams is accused of churning customer accounts.

 According to FINRA, from July 2013 to June 2014, Adams engaged in excessive trading and churned the accounts of two customers, making close to $57,000 in commissions. The customers lost over $37,000 as a result.

Adams is also accused of not reporting numerous unsatisfied judgments and liens on his U4 Registration Form, which he is required to do under FINRA rules. By settling the civil case against him, Adams is not denying or admitting to the charges.

Churning
This type of illegal activity typically involves a broker engaging in the excessive selling or buying of securities in a customer account for the purpose of earning commissions. Signs of possible churning may include frequent in-and-out purchase and securities sales that appear unrelated to the customer’s investment goals.
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Goldman Sachs to Pay $272M to Pension Funds In Mortgage Securities Case

Published on: August 14, 2015 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

Goldman Sachs Group (GS) will pay $272 million to more than 400 bond investors, including two electrical pension funds, to settle a lawsuit alleging that it made misleading disclosures in order to sell mortgage securities backed by faulty loans. The lead plaintiff in the case was the NECA-IBEW Health and Welfare Fund, which is an Illinois-based electrical workers pension fund.

When NECA-IBEW filed its lawsuit against Goldman Sachs in 2008, it contended that not only did it make false statements but also it left out key information about the mortgages it sold into 17 trusts the year before. The plaintiff also said that Goldman misled investors about the underwriting of the loans behind the securities, as well as about the quality of appraisals and whether borrowers were capable of paying back their loans. The fund said that the securities’ prices fell during and after the economic crisis while their credit ratings slipped from triple-A to triple C junk grades.

Writing about the complaint in 2008, HousingWire Publisher Paul Jackson said that some of the claims were over the alleged use of inflated appraisals by the originating entities. He noted that many of the loans in the trusts were of the no-doc, reduced-doc, stated-income ilk, which the plaintiff believes are fraudulent.

Edward Jones to Pay $20M to Resolve Municipal Bond Sales Overcharges

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

Edward D. Jones & Co., the brokerage firm subsidiary of Jones Financial Companies, has consented to pay $20 million to resolve U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission allegations accusing the firm of overcharging clients by at least $4.6 million on new municipal bond sales. The regulator contends that the brokerage firm offered bonds at a higher price than what securities laws require.

Underwriters are supposed to sell new bonds at an initial offering price that was negotiated with the bond issuer. The SEC claims that instead of offering municipal bond sales to customers at the worked out a price, the firm allegedly brought the bonds into its own inventory and then later sold them at high prices. Also, said the Commission, in certain instances the bonds were offered to customers after they had already started to trade in the secondary market at higher prices than what was initially offered.

The regulator said that at the very least Edwards Jones was negligent with the overcharges and its behavior was “inconsistent” with the standards and written agreements that govern municipal underwriting. The SEC says it will continue its probe into the matter.
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ITG, AlterNet Securities to Pay $20.3M to Settle SEC Charges that it Misused Confidential Dark Pool Data, Ran Secret Trading Desk

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

ITG Inc. and affiliate AlterNet Securities will pay $20.3M to resolve Securities and Exchange Commission charges accusing them of running a secret trading desk and misusing dark pool subscribers’ confidential trading information. As part of the settlement, ITG admitted to wrongdoing.

According to the regulator, even though it told the public it was an “agency-only” broker with interests that were not in conflict with the interests of customers, the firm ran Project Omega, an undisclosed proprietary trading desk, for over a year. The SEC’s probe found that even though ITG said that it protected dark pool subscribers’ trading information, for eight months, the trading desk accessed feeds of order and execution data and used the information to put into place its strategies for high-frequency algorithmic.

Dad of Ex-JPMorgan Banker Pleads Guilty to Insider Trading

Published on: August 12, 2015 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

The father of a former JPMorgan (JPM) banker has pleaded guilty to taking part in an insider trading ring with his son. Robert Stewart will forfeit $150,000 and faces five years behind bars.

According to the U.S. Justice Department, Stewart’s son, Sean Stewart, allegedly gave his father tips about upcoming deals, including information about a number of acquisitions and mergers. The older Stewart divulged some of the tips to Richard Cunniffe, who has also pleaded guilty in the conspiracy. Cunniffe is now a cooperating witness.

The DOJ said that in early 2011, Sean, who was a JPMorgan Vice President in the Healthcare Investment Banking Group, began tipping his dad about numerous deals. The first one was about the acquisition of Kendle International Inc.—a deal that he worked on. Robert made nearly $8,000 by buying Kendle stock. The second deal involved the acquisition of Kinetic Concepts Inc. After Sean went to go work at Perella Weinberg, he allegedly continued to provide insider tips to his dad.

UBS Ordered to Pay Over $2.5M to Retired Couple in Puerto Rico Bond Fraud Case

Published on: August 11, 2015 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

UBS Financial Services, Inc. and UBS Financial Services of Puerto Rico (collectively “UBS”) must pay over $2.5 million to Orlando Rodriguez Gonzales and Milagros Vila Maldonado for their investment losses related to the proprietary closed-end bond funds that they bought in Puerto Rico. The funds were sold to them by former UBS broker Jose Gabriel Ramirez, Jr., who is often referred to as “The Whopper.”

The San Juan, Puerto Rico couple, who are in their seventies, claim that they gave their liquid savings to UBS to invest. According to their complaint, the Whopper recommended they take out a $3 million loan and reinvest $2 million of that in the closed-end funds.

The result was that Gonzalez and Maldonado lost roughly $2.1 million in assets after the funds abruptly and swiftly dropped in value in 2013. Gonzalez and Maldonado filed a Financial Industry Regulatory Authority arbitration claim alleging breach of fiduciary duty, unsuitable investment, fraud, and negligence related to the Puerto Rico closed-end mutual funds.
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StockCross Financial Services to Pay $800K for Regulation SHO Violations

Published on: August 11, 2015 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

FINRA says that StockCross Financial Services, Inc. will pay an $800,000 fine for violating Regulation SHO, as well as supervisory violations that went on for over three years. By settling, the firm is not denying or admitting to the charges. It has, however, consented to the entry of the self-regulatory organization’s findings.

FINRA said that from 11/09 to 5/13, StockCross’s system for tracking and monitoring close-out obligations was flawed because the firm had not thought that it was supposed to net flat/long in a security and after shares had been purchased to satisfy its close-out obligation.

The SRO said that after transactions for purchase were made, the firm failed to put restrictions or limits on the rest of the trading activity in that security for the day and its flawed system compelled StockCross to experience delivery failure for several statement days in a row on about 1,826 occasions. Also, StockCross purportedly made more than 4,100 short sales when there were outstanding close-out obligations for these securities.