Investor Lawyers Blog

Stifel Nicolaus Will Repurchase Auction-Rate Securities from Costumers Within Three Years

Published on: March 19, 2009 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

Stifel Financial Corp says that subsidiary Stifel Nicolaus & Co. Inc. will buy back all of its customers’ auction-rate securities in the next three years. This is a significant change from its initial offer to purchase 10% of the clients’ ARS holdings.

The ARS repurchase will occur in four stages:
• By June 30, 2009: $25,000 or 10% (whichever is greater).
• Before June 30, 2010, $25,000 or 10% (whichever is greater).
• Prior to June 30, 2011, $25,000 or 10% (whichever is greater).
• Prior to June 30, 2012, the balance of any outstanding ARS.

Employee accounts, however, are only eligible once the last phase of the enhanced plan begins.

Stifel CEO & Chairman Ronald J. Kruszewski says the plan reflects the proper balance between shareholder and client interests. He says the plan will give relief to its 1200 ARS clients and that about 40% of the accounts would be completely liquidated by the end of June 2009.

The repayment offer applies to ARS that are held by retail clients who purchased the securities through Stifel before the ARS market fell. In return, Stifel says it will take assignment of actionable legal claims by customers against the large players in the ARS market for the amounts it buys back. Stifel maintains that it would not have told its clients to purchase ARS if the key market participants had told the financial firm what they knew about the ARS market collapse.

Missouri securities regulator Secretary of State Robin Carnahan, however, is still concerned that this new offer is still not enough to guarantee that customers will get back all their funds. She noted that three years might be too long for many investors and she called on Stifel to guarantee that it would make its investors whole again.

Soon after Stifel’s announcement of its ARS repurchase plan, Carnahan filed a lawsuit against the St. Louis-based financial firm for misleading clients that had purchased ARS.

Related Web Resources:
Missouri’s Carnahan files suit against Stifel, Forbes/AP, March 12, 2009
Stifel Financial plans 100 percent buyback of ARS, The Street.com, March 9, 2009

Missouri Secretary of State Robin Carnahan
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Madoff and Stanford Victims Can Claim Theft Losses as Tax Deductions, Says Internal Revenue Service

Published on: March 18, 2009 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

According to Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Douglas Shulman, investors who were defrauded by R Allen Stanford and Bernard Madoff can claim these theft losses as deductions when filing their taxes. The IRS announced these new procedures on Tuesday. These new IRS rules are applicable to victims of any Ponzi scam but the tax filings must be filed for the year 2008.

Theoretically, the investors would have been paying capital gains taxes if their investments had made profits. Now that it has been discovered that the profits were bogus, however, the IRS says that these same investors should be refunded those taxes.

Under the new guidance, investment losses incurred because of arrangements involving criminal fraud will be classified as theft losses instead of capital losses (usually capped at $3,000 annually). This will allow the victim to receive the larger deduction. For small businesses with $15 million in gross annual receipts, theft loss deductions can be carried back up to five years for 2008 returns instead of the usual 2-years. Also, fictitious income can also be claimed as theft losses.

Investors that file securities fraud lawsuits against Bernard Madoff because they were bilked by his multibillion-dollar Ponzi scam are allowed a 75% deduction for theft losses. Investors who don’t sue the 70-year-old investment advisor can obtain an immediate 95% deduction as soon as possible and seek to obtain the rest in the future if they don’t get back any of their monies. They could also take a deduction for investment income they thought they made.

Related Web Resources:
IRS Says Madoff Victims Can Claim Theft Losses, Bloomberg.com, March 17, 2009
IRS To Allow Madoff Victims To Deduct Theft Losses For 2008, Fox Business, March 17, 2009
Securities Investor Protection Corporation

Internal Revenue Service
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Despite Financial Market Volatility, Most Investment Advisors Are Telling Clients To Stick With Their Investment Plans

Published on: March 17, 2009 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

According to a TD Ameritrade Institutional survey, most investment advisers continue to tell their clients that now is a great time to invest in the financial market rather than encouraging them to cash out their investments in the wake of the financial crisis:

• 93% of investment advisers are not telling clients to cash out investments.

• Over 50% of these registered advisers believe now is the time to invest in equities.

• 43% of them are telling clients to increase their fixed income allocations.

• 53% are having clients increase cash allocations.

• 41% have dramatically increased their communications with clients so they can offer them reassurance.s

506 registered investment advisers participated in the survey. TD Ameritrade Institutional managing director of advisor advocacy and industry affairs Brian Stimpfl says that the results demonstrate how most advisors are staying committed to sticking with their clients’ investment strategies despite volatility in the financial market.

Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas LTD LLP Founder and Stockbroker Fraud Lawyer William Shepherd, however, had this to say: “When markets fell 20% or so by early September, brokers and financial advisors should have been listening to their clients carefully to learn the true nature of their risk-tolerances. When any investor expresses strong feelings about losses in an account the investment advisor must act to revise the client’s objectives. Several of our clients told their advisors they were losing sleep over their investments. Yet, instead of revising the clients’ investment objectives – and their investments – as required, the advisors adamantly told their clients not to sell. Now that these investors’ nightmares have come true, the advisors want to hide behind objectives marked on the old forms without taking responsibility for their reckless inaction.”

Related Web Resource:
FA Magazine
TD Ameritrade Institutional
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Morgan Keegan Settlement with Children’s Wish Fund Shows the Impact Recouping Investment Losses Can Have On The Little People

Published on: March 14, 2009 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

In 2007, Morgan Keegan settled an arbitration claim with the Indiana Children’s Wish Fund for an undisclosed amount. The charity had reported losing $48,000 in a mutual fund it had invested in with the brokerage firm.

The Wish Fund became involved in mortgage securities after a local banker persuaded the charity’s executive director, Terry Ceaser-Hudson, to invest money in a bond fund through Morgan Keegan. Ceaser-Hudson was put in touch with broker Christopher Herrmann. When she asked him about the risks of investing in the fund, she says he assured her that investing it would be as safe as investing in a CD or a money market account.

In June 2007, the Wish Fund invested nearly $223,000 in the fund. That week, two Bear Stearns funds collapsed.

Less than three weeks after investing the charity’s money in the Morgan Keegan fund, Ceaser-Hudson says she was surprised to see a $5,000 loss. As the bond fund’s net asset value fell in September, she ordered the sale of the stakes to be sold. She got back about $174,000 of the $223,000 she had invested on behalf of the Wish Fund-that’s a 22% loss in just three months. Ceaser-Hudson filed an arbitration claim against Morgan Keegan and accused Herrmann of breach of duty when he making an unsuitable recommendation to the Wish Fund.

It appears as if the Regions Morgan Keegan mutual fund board members, like many investment professionals, did not properly assess the risks that came with investing in mortgage securities. Most of the brokerage firm’s directors do not own shares in the bond funds that were devastated, which means that the majority of them were not impacted by their decline.

For a charity like the Children’s Wish Fund, however, the losses it incurred had been preventing nine sick children from having their wishes granted.

Related Web Resources:
The Debt Crisis, Where It’s Least Expected, New York Times, December 30, 2007
The Indiana Children’s Wish Fund
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Moody’s Investors Can Pursue Securities Fraud Class Action Lawsuit Accusing the Credit Rating Agency of Falsely Claiming Independence

Published on: March 11, 2009 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

A US District Court judge says Moody’s Corp. investors can go ahead in part with a lawsuit accusing the credit rating agency of securities fraud. The class action lawsuit accuses Moody’s of claiming it was an independent body that impartially published accurate financial instrument ratings when such misrepresentations artificially inflated its stock price (until media reports about its compromised objectivity caused the value of its stocks to drop).

In the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, Judge Shirley Wohl Kram said the plaintiffs sufficiently alleged that the credit rating agency’s statements over its independence were false. She did find deficiencies with other pleadings, however, including a failure to properly plead scienter against Michael Kanef, the group managing director of Moody’s US asset finance group, and Brian Clarkson, Moody’s chief operating officer. The court also approved the plaintiffs’ request that they be allowed to cure the pleading deficiencies.

The court also said that it did not consider Moody’s statements about its independence to be inactionable puffery. Moody had declared independence and made a list of verifiable actions it executed to make sure it continued to stay independent. However, other specifics, the court said, were not actionable, including statements about the meaning of structured finance securities or that its structured finance revenues came from legitimate business practices.

The court said that the plaintiffs’ class action case survives the defendants’ motion to dismiss the lawsuit.

Credit Rating Agencies
It is the job of credit rating agencies to help manage financial market risk. CRA’s are responsible for publishing creditworthiness evaluations about their clients. These evaluations not only help in the assessment of credit risk but they are important for regulation.

Related Web Resources:
Moody’s Must Defend Investor Suit Over Independence, Bloomberg.com, February 23, 2009
Shareholder lawsuit vs Moody’s allowed to proceed, CNBC.com, February 23, 2009
Moody’s
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UBS Sanctioned For Madoff-Related Losses by Luxembourg Financial Services Regulator

Published on: March 9, 2009 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

In Europe, the Luxembourg Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier (CSSF) has censured UBS’s Luxembourg-based branch for failing to execute due diligence and, as a result, allegedly allowing for the massive losses investors have incurred from the Bernard Madoff’s $50 billion Ponzi scam.

The Luxembourg financial service regulator is accusing Switzerland’s biggest bank of a “serious failure” in the way it managed a feeder fund that funnelled assets to Madoff-related investments. Luxembourg’s CSSF is giving UBS three months to remedy the problems.

UBS, however, is disputing the CSSF’s claim that it violated its contractual obligation to clients. The investment bank says the Luxalpha fund was set up at the request of wealthy clients that wanted a tailor-made fund that would let them invest their assets with Bernard Madoff. UBS says these clients knew that it was not responsible for their assets’ security.

Following news of the Madoff scheme and revelations that some French investors had allegedly lost billions of dollars because their investments were channelled to Madoff through Luxembourg-based mutual funds, the European Commission announced it would start investigating the way EU member states use the EU mutual fund regulatory regime (UCITS, which refers to Undertakings for Collective Investment in Transferable Securities).

The EU also said that approval of a new regulatory regime will more than likely be delayed so more changes can be considered to ensure that investors are protected in the future from losses such as the ones that occurred with Madoff.

The French government accused UBS of lax supervision of mutual funds. French officials have also accused Luxembourg of being lax when it comes to EU mutual fund regulations. They’ve called on the EU to come up with stricter rules. Luxembourg, which has one of the EU’s mutual fund financial service sectors, disagrees with France’s accusations.

Madoff’s scheme has resulted in massive losses for individual investors, institutions, world financial markets, politicians, charities, and many others.

Luxembourg regulator censures UBS over Bernard Madoff, Times Online, February 26, 2009
French investors to take legal action against banks over Madoff feeder funds, Times Online, January 14, 2009

Related Web Resources:
Feds say Bernard Madoff’s $50 billion Ponzi scheme was worst ever, Daily News, December 13, 2008
Luxembourg’s Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier
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Outcome of SEC Actions Appear to Favor Larger Broker-Dealers than Smaller Ones, Says Harvard Law School Study

Published on: March 7, 2009 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

The Securities and Exchange Commission may be “too close” to larger investment firms that they give them preferential treatment in SEC Actions, says a Harvard Law School study. One “tentative” explanation cited by the study is that SEC officials look to the larger broker-dealers-especially those located in New York-for future employment opportunities. The study also noted that the SEC was more likely to order smaller broker-dealers (than larger firms) to court, rather than merely slapping the firm with an administrative proceedings.

The Harvard study took a look at patterns the SEC exhibited when it enforced actions against investment firms in 1998, 2005, 2006, and Jan – April in 2007. Findings included:

• When large investment firms and smaller firms faced the same SEC violations for similar levels of harm, there was a 75% smaller chance that a big broker-dealer would have to go to court than one of its smaller counterparts.
• There was a 44% chance that employees from large broker-dealers would have to go to court to fight an SEC action, compared to a 73% possibility for employees of smaller broker-dealers.
• When facing SEC administrative proceedings, bigger firms were less likely to be banned from the industry. 25% of small firms defendants in such actions received permanent industry bans, compared to just 5% of large firm defendants.
• There did not appear to be a justifiable reason for why there was a disparity between the outcomes of SEC actions involving larger broker-dealers and smaller ones.
• However, both large and small firms were slapped with equivalent fines.

The study did not look at SEC enforcement actions in 1999 and 1920 because of worries the findings might be affected by the burst of the “dot.com bubble,” as well as the outcomes of SEC actions from 2008 that may have been impacted by the financial crisis.

Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, UBS Securities, Bank of America, Moody’s Investment Services, and Fitch Ratings are Among Defendants Sued On Behalf of Wells Fargo Certificate Investors for Alleged Securities Fraud Violations

Published on: March 5, 2009 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

The Boilermaker-Blacksmith National Pension Trust is suing a number of investment banks, credit rating agencies, and underwriters, including Wells Fargo, WFASC, Morgan Stanley & Co., Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC, Barclays Capital Inc., Bear Stearns & Co., Countrywide Securities Corp., Deutsche Bank Securities Inc., JPMorgan Chase Inc., Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Global Markets Inc., McGraw-Hill Cos., Moody’s Investor Services Inc., and Fitch Ratings Inc., over allegations that they made false statements in the prospectus and registration statement for certificates that were collateralized by Wells Fargo Bank, NA. The lawsuit, filed on behalf of thousands of investors that bought the certificates from Wells Fargo Asset Securities Corp., accuses the defendants of violating the 1933 Securities Act by engaging in these alleged actions.

According to the securities fraud lawsuit, the defendants concealed from investors that Wells Fargo revised its underwriting practices in 2005 and became involved in high risk subprime mortgage lending. The complaint contends that WFASC and a number of defendants submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commision prospectus and registration statements representing that the mortgages were backed by certificates that were subject to specific underwriting guidelines for evaluating a borrower’s creditworthiness. The plaintiffs contend that these prospectuses and registration statements were false because they neglected to reveal that the Wells Fargo-originated certificates were not in accordance with the credit, underwriting, and appraisal standards that Wells Fargo, per the companies, had supposedly used to approve mortgages.

The lawsuit also claims that because Wells Fargo decided to enter the subprime mortgage mortgage market in 2005, the investment bank had to take significant write-downs in 2008 because of its massive exposure to the subprime market and the WFASC certificates that these mortgages backed dropped significantly in value. The Boiler-Blaksmith fund reports that it lost about $5 million, which is more than half of what it invested.

Related Web Resources:
Read the Complaint

The Boilermakers National Funds
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SEC Freezes Assets of Westridge Capital Management, WG Investors, LP, WG Trading Company, LP, and Money Managers Stephen Walsh and Paul Greenwood Over Alleged Misappropriation of Up to $554 Million in Investor Funds

Published on: March 3, 2009 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

The Securities and Exchange Commission is accusing money managers Stephen Walsh and Paul Greenwood, along with their affiliated entities Westridge Capital Management, WG TRADING Company, LP, and WG Investors, LP, of orchestrating an investment fraud scam that has resulted in the misappropriation of some $554 million in investor assets.

According to the SEC, Greenwood and Walsh told investors that their money was going to be placed in a stock index arbitrage strategy, but instead, they used the funds to buy luxury cars, multi-million dollar residences, a horse farm and horses, rare collectibles, as well as pay for other personal expenses. The SEC has obtained an asset freeze against the two money managers and their affiliated entities.

The SEC’s complaint accuses Walsh and Greenwood, through their three affiliated entities, of violating the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the Securities Act of 1933, and the Investment Advisers Act of 1940. The SEC is seeking a permanent enjoinment of the defendants from committing future violations of the federal securities laws and wants them to pay penalties, disgorgement of ill-gotten gains, and prejudgment interest.

Meantime, the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission filed charges against Walsh, Greenwood, and their affiliated entities, while the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York filed criminal charges against the two money managers, who have both been arrested.

Because a number of prominent consulting firms recommended the money managers and their affiliated entities to pension and endowment groups, these investors now stand to loose millions. Wilshire Associates, Mercer, and Cambridge Associates are three of the consulting firms that made such recommendations.

For example, the Sacramento County Employees’ Retirement System made its multi-million dollar investment after Mercer highly recommended WG Trading and Westridge. Kern County Employees’ Retirement Association in California and the Iowa Public Employees’ Retirement System invested their money after Wilshire recommended Westridge.

Consulting firms play a huge role in the investment business. One reason is that they give advice to hundreds of institutional investors on where to place their money. The money managers they recommend can end up making millions of dollars, while the clients pay consulting firms either a small percentage of the assets invested or a flat fee for a contract lasting a number of years.

Related Web Resources:
Consultants Touted Firm Accused in Fraud, The Wall Street Journal, February 27, 2009
SEC Charges Two New York Residents For Misappropriating More Than $500 Million in Investment Scheme, SEC, February 25, 2009
Read the SEC Complaint (PDF)
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Morgan Stanley Court Case Demonstrates Why Securities Arbitration is Often a Better Forum

Published on: February 27, 2009 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

Many lawyers and investors complain about securities arbitration. According to Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas LTD LLP Founder and Stockbroker Fraud Attorney William Shephard, however, the following Morgan Stanley case is “one of many cases filed in court which would have likely not been dismissed in securities arbitration.”

Earlier this month, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York tossed out a securities class action lawsuit filed against Morgan Stanley, Morgan Stanley DW Inc. (MSDWI), Morgan Stanley & Co. Inc. (MS&Co.), the Technology Fund, the Information Fund, Morgan Stanley Investment Management Inc., Morgan Stanley Investment Advisors Inc. (MSIA), and Morgan Stanley Distributors Inc. The class action case is on behalf of investors in the Morgan Stanley Information Fund and Morgan Stanley Technology Fund over alleged improprieties in initial public offering shares allocations, as well as alleged conflicts of interest between Morgan Stanley’s research and investment banking departments.

According to the court, the investors claim they lost millions of dollars in the purchase of the funds as a result of violations of the 1933 Securities Act. The plaintiffs are also claiming that Morgan Stanley, MSDWI, and MS&Co. publicly said that they kept a “Chinese Wall” between their research and investment banking departments so there wouldn’t be any conflicts of interest when, in fact, this wall had fallen and MS & Co. was acting to benefit its investment banking departments. They also claim they were told that analyst recommendations and research were not influenced by the interests of Morgan Stanley or its affiliates.

Among the conflicts of interest, the investors are alleging that the defendants engaged in at least one of the a number of roles involving companies that with shares included among the funds’ portfolio securities for the class periods, including:

• As underwriters for certain securities.
• As investment bankers for certain companies with securities in the funds’ portfolios.
• Preparing and sending out research reports and recommendations about companies that had shares in the funds’ portfolios.
• Trying to get first-time or more underwriting and additional business from the companies that had shares in the portfolios.

The plaintiffs contend that MS & Co. factored in how much investment bank business research analysts were able to secure when determining their total compensation. This resulted in MS & Co.’s promotion of Morgan Stanley shares or those of potential clients, which then would lead to the price inflation of the companies’ shares. They also claimed that the portfolio funds had a substantial amount of Morgan-Stanley sponsored-stocks and that Morgan Stanley took part in “laddering,” which involved rewarding customers with “hot” IPO shares when they went after research tie-ins that artificially inflated an IPO stock’s aftermarket share price.

The court, however, dismissed the lawsuit saying that the plaintiffs failed to plead material omissions that Morgan Stanley should have disclosed. Continue Reading ›