Investor Lawyers Blog

Fed to Charge U.S. Banks with More Stringent Capital Surcharge

Published on: September 19, 2014 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

The Federal Reserve intends to impose a capital surge on the largest U.S. banks to lower the risks that come with certain financial firms that are still “too big to fail.” The requirement will require these institutions to maintain bigger cushions against possible losses.

Fed Governor Daniel Tarullo gave testimony about this planned surcharge in front of a Senate Banking Committee hearing earlier this month. The Fed also reportedly intends to penalize banks that depend too much on volatile types of short-term funding.

Ever since the 2008 economic crisis, banks have increased their capital and must abide by new rules. The Wall Street Journal reports that according to Federal Financial Analytics’ examination of six U.S. banks, between 2007 and 2013 these firms upped their capital by $29.07 billion.

Morgan Stanley to Pay a $280,000 Fine to CFTC for Records and Supervision Failures Involving SureInvestment and $35M Ponzi Scam

Published on: September 16, 2014 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, LLC (MS) has settled civil charges by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) accusing the firm of records violations and inadequate supervision involving its know-your-customer procedures. Aside from a $280,000 fine, the broker-dealer will have to disgorge commissions from the subject accounts involved.

According to the regulator, Morgan Stanley did not diligently oversee its employees, officers, and agents when they opened firm accounts for a family of companies known as SureInvestment, which purportedly ran a hedge fund that was partially based in the British Virgin Islands-considered to be a risky jurisdiction. Because of this geographic circumstance, when the accounts were opened the firm should have subjected them to special observation pursuant to its procedures, including watching out for red flags indicating suspect activities.

The CFTC’s order, however, notes that even though there were a number of red flags in the account opening documents for SureInvestments, Morgan Stanley failed to identify them. Later, it was discovered that SureInvestment doesn’t even exist and that its owner, Benjamin Wilson, was conducting a $35 million Ponzi scam based in the U.K. (Wilson, who has pleaded to criminal charges brought by the Financial Conduct Authority, has been sentenced to time behind bars.)

Regulators Adjust Liquidity Rule for Big Banks

Published on: September 16, 2014 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

A new rule adopted by U.S. banks will require over thirty of the largest banks, including Citigroup (C) and JPMorgan Chase (JPM), to add another $100 billion in cash or cash-like investments to what they currently hold to make sure that the firms don’t run out of money in a crisis. Previous expectations were for the banks to raise around $200 billion to satisfy the rule’s requirements. However, regulators have since reduced that number.

The liquidity rule is supposed to protect the financial system and the economy during times of stress in the market so that the same issues that led to the failures of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers during the 2008 economic meltdown don’t happen. The regulation mandates that firms have enough safe assets to cover 100% of their net cash outflows for 30 days when there is economic turmoil. With the final liquidity ratio banks, with assets between $50 billion and $250 billion will calculate their positions monthly instead of daily. They have until January 1, 2016 to comply with the rule.

According to The Wall Street Journal, The Clearing House, a trade group that represents banks, has expressed approval of the changes to the final rule. U.S. officials have said the liquidity coverage ratio creates a good balance between economic growth and financial stability. For now, municipal debt securities will not be considered safe, “high-quality liquid assets” that can go toward a bank’s compliance. Meantime, however, some people have expressed worry that when the markets and the economy are good the rule could impede banks from investing or lending.

FINRA Fines Minneapolis Broker-Dealer $1M for Inadequate Supervision of Penny Stocks

Published on: September 13, 2014 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority has issued an enforcement action charging Feltl & Company for not notifying certain customers of the suitability and risks involving certain penny-stock transactions, as well as for failing to issue customer account statements showing each penny stock’s market value. The brokerage firm is based in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

FINRA claims that the firm failed to properly document transactions for securities that temporarily may not have fulfilled the definition of a penny stock and did not properly track penny-stock transactions involving securities that didn’t make a market.

Feltl made a market in nearly twenty penny stocks. The brokerage firm made $2.1 million from at least 2,450 customer transactions that were solicited in 15 penny stocks between 2008 and 2012. The SRO says it isn’t clear how much the firm made from selling penny stocks that it didn’t keep track of but that revenue from this would have been substantial.

FINRA Headlines: SRO Considers Revised Broker Bonus Plan, To Discuss Potential Dark Pool Rules, May Instigate Civil Action Against Wells Fargo, &Warns Investors About Frontier Markets

Published on: September 12, 2014 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

FINRA to Revive Proposal Mandating that Brokers Disclose Recruitment Incentives

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority has decided to revive a proposal that would obligate brokers to notify clients of any incentives they received for being recruited by another firm. The self-regulatory organization had withdrawn the rule in June after getting over 180 comment letters.

Now, however, according to the agenda for FINRA’s next board meeting, the SRO intends to look at a revised recruitment practices policy that would make the recruiting firms delineate their compensation packages to clients who are thinking of moving their assets from the a broker’s previous firm to the financial representative’s new firm.

SEC to Dismiss Lawsuit Against SIPC Over Payments to Stanford Ponzi Scam Victims

Published on: September 11, 2014 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

The Securities and Exchange Commission has said that it no longer intends to continue trying to get the Securities Investor Protection Corporation to pay back investors the losses they sustained in R. Allen Stanford’s $7 billion Ponzi scam. The decision comes after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that the regulator failed to prove that the scheme’s victims were “customers” eligible for compensation by the SIPC. That decision upheld an earlier ruling by a district court in 2012.

Even though the SEC is no longer seeking to compel the brokerage industry insurance fund to pay the investors, the agency says it is committed to the victims and will keep working with the U.S. Department of Justice, the Stanford Receiver, and others in an effort to maximize investor recovery.

SIPC keeps a special fund to pay back investors if their securities and cash were lost when a brokerage failed. The agency, however, said it couldn’t compensate the Stanford Ponzi scam victims because their losses were not a result of a broker-dealer failing but due to their purchase of CDs from a foreign bank-assets that they are still holding and now have no value.

Government Probe of Height Securities Into Possible Insider Trading Expands to Hedge Funds

Published on: September 10, 2014 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is looking into whether anyone from the government illegally leaked to Wall Street traders that there was going to be a change in health-care policy. In 2013, The Wall Street Journal reported that just before the government announced news that was favorable to companies in regards to Medicare payments, health-insurance stocks rose. Investigators want to know whether insider trading was involved.

The stock rise, linked to the announcement that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services would reverse its direction on intended funding cuts for private insurance plans, may have been spurred by an email sent by a Height Securities, a Washington-based policy research firm. The alert appears to have been partially based on information that an ex-congressional health-care aide, who is now lobbyist, gave to the firm.

Sources tell The WSJ that the SEC now possesses evidence of over 20 phone calls, instant messages, and emails between investors and Height Securities analysts from the time the email alert was issued to when the market closed. The exchanges involved the hedge funds Citadel LLC, Visium Asset Management LLC, Viking Global Investors LP, and Point72 Asset Management LP, which was previously called SAC Capital Advisors.

CFTC Notifies Justice Department of Criminal Rate Rigging, Looks at Possible Swaps Loophole

Published on: September 9, 2014 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

The U.S. Commodities Trading Commission has notified the Department of Justice that there is evidence of criminal conduct related to the alleged manipulation of ISDAfix. The regulator had sent subpoenas to the biggest banks in the world in 2012 to find out if the benchmark, used to establish rates for trillions of dollars of financial products and track prices on interest-rate swaps, was rigged. The CFTC, however, can only file civil charges.

Benchmarks are integral to global finance. They help lenders determine what to charge borrowers and pension funds to figure out future obligations, among other uses. Regulators have been investigating claims that banks and brokers seeking to profit helped manipulate certain benchmarks, while investors lost out in the process.

Last week, the Alaska Electrical Pension Fund sued thirteen banks, including UBS (UBS), Citigroup (C), and Bank of America (BAC), and brokerage firm ICAP Plc (IAP) claiming they worked together to rig ISDAfix. UK securities regulators are also looking into the claims.

Mortgage Transfers to Nonbanks Get Closer Regulator Scrutiny

Published on: September 7, 2014 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

In the last two years, millions of borrowers with mortgages have been moved from banks to nonbanks. This can result in problems for home loan borrowers.

A reason for this is that a lot of banks are getting rid of their mortgage servicing rights. 14 of the leading bank servicers, including JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM), Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC), and Bank of America (BAC) have sold off over $1 trillion of these rights in the last two years. The primary buyers are nonbank servicers, which now handle one in every seven mortgages.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which is engaged in the oversight of nonbanks, enacted regulations earlier this year that extended rules for banks to nonbank servicers that collect mortgage payments and deal with foreclosures and modifications. Last month, the bureau also put out guidance on new regulations that specifies the way loan transfers to nonbanks should be dealt with, including a provision mandating that buyers and sellers conduct meetings in at timely manner to talk about the continuity of service before a mortgage is handed off. Sales contracts also must stipulate that mortgage documents need to be given to the new servicer. However, a recently released CFPB statement reported that some nonbank services are billing customers incorrectly, not honoring approved modifications, and losing paperwork.

Fidelity Investments Settles Class Action Lawsuits Over 401(K) Plan for $12 million

Published on: September 5, 2014 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

Fidelity Investments has consented to pay $12 million to settle two class action employee lawsuits. The plaintiffs contend that the retirement plan provider was self-dealing in the FMR LLC Profit Sharing Plan and making money at their expense by offering employees high-cost fund options and making them pay excessive fees.

Over 50,000 ex- and present employees are eligible to receive from the settlement. Fidelity is accused of providing just its own funds in the retirement plan for its workers, with certain investment options having little (if any) track record, while failing to use an impartial process when choosing the investment options.

As part of the agreement, Fidelity Investments will now give employees a choice of non-Fidelity and Fidelity mutual funds, increase auto-enrollment to 7%, and allow participants of non-Fidelity mutual funds to benefit from revenue sharing, just like the participants of Fidelity mutual funds and collective trusts. The company also will keep offering a default investment alternative, the Fidelity Freedom Funds-Class. The Portfolio Advisory Services at Work program will be provided for free.