Massachusetts’ Securities Regulator Says Fidelity Brokerage Services “Rubber Stamped” Options Trading Applications William Galvin, head of the Massachusetts Securities Division, has filed an administrative complaint against Fidelity Brokerage Services. The firm has been accused of not making a good enough attempt to vet investors’ applications before allowing them to engage…
Nearly years after settling two 401K lawsuits for $12 million, participants in Fidelity Investments’ retirement plan are once more suing the firm. The plaintiffs allege that self-dealing cost them money while allowing the financial firm and a number of its affiliated entities to turn a profit. According to the complaint…
The US Securities and Exchange Commission has filed civil charges against Ameriprise Financial Services (AMP). The regulator is accusing the brokerage firm and investment adviser of recommending to retail retirement account customers that they purchase mutual fund shares that charged higher fees. Ameriprise purportedly failed to employ sales charge waivers…
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) has imposed an over $1 million penalty on Fidelity Investment’s Fidelity Brokerage Services (Fidelity) for failing to protect clients from a financial fraud committed by a woman pretending to be a broker for the firm. Lisa A. Lewis (Lewis) stole over $1 million from…
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…
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority says that Fidelity Investments must pay $350,000 for overcharging thousands of clients $2.4 million for transactions involving fee-based accounts in its Institutional Wealth Services Group. The overcharges are said to have occurred from 1/06 to 9/13. The group offers brokerage and trading services to investment…
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.…
While regulators continue pondering whether to impose more regulations on money market mutual funds, a number of financial institutions, including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS), JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM), Fidelity Investments, BlackRock Inc. (BLK), Bank of New York Mellon Corp. (BK), Federated Investors Inc. (FII), and Charles Schwab Corp.,(SCHW),…
A number of Fidelity Brokerage Services LLC representatives who left the company last year say that they were obligated to acquire certified financial planner certification but were also barred from revealing that part of their bonuses were affected by whether they sold certain proprietary products. About half of Fidelity brokers’…
Fidelity Investments has agreed to pay an $8 million fine to settle Securities and Exchange Commission charges that the company failed to properly supervise its stock traders that had improperly received gifts. 13 current and ex-Fidelity employees are targeted in the SEC investigation. The gifts were given to traders by…