Investor Lawyers Blog

California Regulators Probe Inland American Real Estate Trust REIT

Published on: May 15, 2014 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

The California Department of Business Oversight is looking into the Inland American Real Estate Trust Inc. This is the largest nontraded real estate investment trust with $9.7 billion in assets. Earlier their year, Inland American announced to shareholders that it would become a self-managed REIT.

Inland American is one of the big REITs that experienced a swift drop in valuation when the real estate market crashed in ’07-’08. While the nontraded REIT is currently not under investigation, state regulators want clarification about the offering price in the recent repurchase of shares of the REIT.

In a letter written last month, the department’s corporation counsel Danielle Stoumbos asked why Inland is selling shares at up to $8.03/share in its distribution reinvestment plan when the share price pursuant to the latest tender offer is just $6.10 to $6.50. The state also wants to know how Inland compensates its manager/internal adviser and whether there might be conflicts of interest.

Prudential’s RMBS Lawsuit Against Bank of America Survives Motion to Dismiss

Published on: May 15, 2014 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

Prudential Insurance Co.’s (PRU) residential mortgage-backed securities lawsuit against Bank of America (BAC) made it through a motion to dismiss with most of the claims made intact. The insurance company is accusing BofA of selling it $2 billion in bogus RMBS.

Prudential contends that based on its own analysis of close to 21,000 of the mortgage loans backing the RMBS certificates, they don’t see a match up with the representations that the bank and Merrill Lynch made about the certificates. Several subsidiaries are also making similar claims against BofA and its Merrill Lynch entities.

Prudential says that Merrill and Lynch and Bank of America abided by underwriting guidelines that established the rules to determine whether to securitize or grant a particular loan. However, the insurer says that while the other two said they would only exempt loans with compensating factors, they granted loan exceptions repeatedly even when these factors didn’t exist. In its securities fraud case, Prudential contends that if exceptions were given when compensating factors were lacking, then that the quality of the collateral behind the certificates was badly compromised.

Jury Says Wyly Brothers From Texas Committed Fraud

Published on: May 14, 2014 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

A jury says that the wealthy Texas billionaire brothers Charles and Samuel Wyly committed fraud by setting up a secret scam using offshores trusts and making $550M in illegal trading profits. The Texas securities ruling of liability is based on claims brought by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The civil trial occurred following years of probes and litigation by the SEC and others. While the Wylys (Charles died in a 2011 car crash) admitted to setting up trusts on the Isle of Man for tax benefits, asset protection, and estate planning, they have denied wrongdoing. The brothers maintained that they were under no obligation to disclose the trusts because legally they weren’t the beneficial owners of the securities in them. They said that they relied on an “army of lawyers” to make sure their activities were in compliance with the law.

The SEC said the Wylys set up the trusts to hide trading that took place between 1992 and 2004 in four companies. The brothers were the boards of these four entities.

DOJ’s Fund for Madoff Victims Has Received 51,700 Claims Worth $40B

Published on: May 14, 2014 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

According to Richard C. Breeden, who is overseeing the US Department of Justice’s Madoff Victim Fund, he has received some 51,700 claims worth approximately $40 billion from Ponzi scam victims seeking to recover their losses. That amount is three times more than the claims submitted during the bankruptcy proceedings for Bernard L. Madoff’s firm.

The fund is responsible for giving back $4 billion in forfeited assets to claimants, including those who were indirectly impacted by the Madoff Ponzi scam, such as ” feeder funds,” banks, hedge funds, and other entities that trustee Irving Picard has denied recovery. Picard is only compensating direct investors who were harmed.

Breeden says that the amount of investors seeking recovery are twice as many as previously estimated and their claimed losses are billions of dollars greater than what was documented. Prior to an April 30 deadline, he received over 43,500 claims from those who did not submit to the bankruptcy case. More than 36,000 claims were from those who said they haven’t gotten any of their losses back.

US Wants BNP Paribas to Pay Over $3.5B and Plead Guilty to Criminal Charges

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

Authorities in the United States want BNP Paribas SA (BNP) to pay over $3.5 billion to settle state and federal probes into the lender’s involvement with countries that are sanctioned, including Iran and Sudan. Prosecutors reportedly would like BNP to plead guilty to criminal charges related to the alleged misconduct. The government’s push for a guilty plea is definitely a shift from previous sanction cases that were usually resolved with a deferred prosecution deal.

The US Justice Department, US Treasury Department, the U.S. Attorney’s office in Manhattan, the New York Department of Financial Services, and the Manhattan District Attorney’s office are the ones who conducted the investigations against BNP Paribas. According to Reuters, last week the bank’s CEO Jean-Laurent Bonnafe and its lawyers met with the New York Department of Financial Services to ask for leniency. A source told the wire service that the state’s banking regulator doesn’t plan to take away BNP Parabas’s license as longa as any deal reached includes certain stiff penalties, such as the temporary suspension of dollar clearing through New York.

US authorities have pursued several foreign banks because they violated sanctions on Iran and other nations. The government believes that these banks did business with entities with ties to these countries, perhaps even stripping information that came from wire transfers so they could get through the US financial system without raising concerns.

Puerto Rico-Based Doral Financial Expected to Default on Over $150M in Muni Bonds

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

Moody’s Investors Service (MCO) and other credit rating agencies are saying that there is a good chance that Doral Financial Corp. (DRL), which is based in Puerto Rico, will default on over $150M muni notes and bonds. Moody’s has downgraded both a note and a bond that was issued by the Puerto Rico Conservation Trust Fund, in which Doral Financial Corp. is the obligor, from Caa3 to C. This is the lowest rating the agency can give before an investment defaults. This prediction comes after regulators determined that receivables from Puerto Rico’s government couldn’t be included in Doral Financial’s Tier 1 capital.

The receivables were $289M out of Doral’s $679M of Tier 1 capital. The regulators’ decision will compel the bank to up its capital or turn in a contingency plan to liquidate, merge, or sell. The plan has to be submitted to the Federal Deposit Insurance Company (“FDIC”).

Moody’s also downgraded senior secured bonds from Doral Properties, a Doral Financial subsidiary, from Caa3 to C, while Fitch Ratings lowered Doral Financial’s issuer default rating from CCC to C (the credit agency’s second lowest possible rating). Standard & Poor downgraded the bank to CC, which is its third lowest rating.

Goldman Sachs Under Investigation Over Hiring Practices, High-Frequency Trading

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

Goldman Sachs (GS) Group Inc. said it is under scrutiny in probes related to high-frequency trading and whether its hiring practices comply US antibribery laws. This is the first time the firm has publicly disclosed both investigations. The information was made available via Goldman’s quarterly filing with the SEC.

In the bank hiring practices investigation, Credit Suisse Group Ag (CS), Morgan Stanley (MS), UBS AG (UBS), and Citigroup (C) are also under scrutiny. The Securities and Exchange Commission wants to know whether the banks or their staff hired the relatives of well-connected officials in Asia, which could be a violation of the antibribery laws-in particular, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which prevents companies from giving foreign officials items of value in exchange for business. Although it isn’t illegal to hire government officials’ relatives in Asia, hires cannot just be made for the purpose of earning new business.

As for the high-speed trading probe, the US Justice Department, the SEC, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation are assessing trades that engage in fast algorithmic trading. Schneiderman wants to know if firms involved in high-speed trading have secret deals with trading venues, such as dark pools and stock exchanges, that lets them trade before other investors.

Citigroup Must Contend With $1B New York CDO Lawsuit, Says Appeals Court

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

A New York appeals court says that Citigroup (C) must face a collateralized debt obligation lawsuit accusing the firm of lying about the risks involved in nearly $1 billion of securities. The plaintiff is Loreley Financing, a group of investment companies in the Channel Islands that was set up to invest in CDOs. It has made similar allegations in separate CDO fraud cases against other banks.

In 2012, Loreley sued Citigroup Global Markets Inc. in New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan. The plaintiff alleged that the bank secretly selected the most high-risk mortgages for sale in CDOs while purchasing credit default swaps in order to bet against them. The investment group says that Citigroup employed a similar strategy to help clients get rid of mortgage-backed securities that were toxic.

According to Loreley, it purchased $965 million of notes through Citigroup, which then made money by charging fees and getting rid of loans that were likely to sustain losses. The investment group wants the purchases rescinded and its money returned.

State Senator Reprimanded For Violating the Texas Securities Act

Published on: May 8, 2014 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

The Texas State Securities Board has reprimanded Senator Ken Paxton and ordered him pay a $1,000 fine for soliciting investment clients even though he wasn’t properly registered. According to the board’s disciplinary order, Paxton, who is running for state attorney general, violated the Texas Securities Act. Under the Act’s Section 12.B, a person cannot act as an investment adviser representative unless he/she is registered as one for that investment adviser in particular.

The Texas Tribune reports that Paxton started working as a solicitor for companies belonging to Fritz Mowery in 2001. On three occasions, in 2004, 2005, and 2012, he took part in unregistered solicitations and referred the customers to Mowery Capital Management, LLC. The fine is for the last incident, which occurred within the last five years. (One of the incidents led to a Texas securities fraud case in 2009 when investors Teri and David Goettsche sued Paxton and Mowery for breach of duty.

In their Texas investment fraud case, the Goettsches claimed that Paxton recommended they invest with Mowery while failing to mention that he would get a 30% commission for the referral. The couple later dropped the securities lawsuit.

Securities Lawsuits Accuse BlackRock Of Charging Exorbitant Investment Advisor Fees

Published on: May 8, 2014 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

Timothy C. Davidson, a Florida investment adviser, is suing BlackRock (BLK). He says the money manager and other defendants breached their fiduciary duty by charging disproportionately high investment advisory fees for the BlackRock Global Allocation Fund (MDLOX). He says that the excessive fees had “no reasonable relationship” to the services that the firm provided.

Because of the alleged wrongdoing, Davidson contends, BlackRock Advisors was able to keep most of the benefits that stemmed from a growth in assets that were under management without properly sharing these with the fund or shareholders. The investment advisor also says that the fund’s board did not behave “conscientiously” when it approved markups and fees and this breaches certain obligations under the Investment Company Act of 1940.

The BlackRock Global Allocation Fund manages about $60 billion. Davidson said that a trust he helped establish owned $1 million of shares in the fund’s institutional share class. (David helped form the trust after he bought a lottery ticket that won the Powerball in 2011.)