The SEC is charging Stifel, Nicolaus & Co. and its former Senior Vice President David W. Noack with securities fraud over the sale of unsuitable, high-risk complex investments to 5 Wisconsin school districts. Stifel and Noack allegedly misrepresented the risks involved in investing $200 million in synthetic collateralized debt obligations…
Three years after five Wisconsin school districts filed their securities fraud lawsuit against Stifel, Nicolaus & Company and the Royal Bank of Canada, the Securities and Exchange Commission has filed charges against the brokerage firm and former Stifel Senior Vice President David W. Noack over the same allegations. The charges…
In Wilson v. Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc., the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association and the Securities and Exchange Commission have submitted separate amicus curiae briefs to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit that differ on whether Merrill Lynch can be held liable for allegedly manipulating…
The National Credit Union Administration has filed a $629 million securities fraud lawsuit against RBS Securities, Wachovia Mortgage Loan Trust LLC, Nomura Home Equity Loan Inc., Greenwich Capital Acceptance Inc., Lares Asset Securitization Inc., IndyMac MBS Inc., and American Home Mortgage Assets LLC. The NCUA is accusing the financial firms…
In district court, Judge Samuel Conti has confirmed a Financial Industry Regulatory Authority panel’s $75,000 arbitration award to Kenneth Schaffer against Wells Fargo Advisors, LLC. It was the financial firm that began proceedings against its former employer last year. Schaffer accused Wells Fargo of “ending” his career when on a…
According to six Federal Home Loan Banks, the investors of Countrywide Financial Corp.’s mortgage bonds may be entitled to three or more times more than what the proposed $8.5 billion securities settlement reached with Bank of America Corp (BAC) is offering. Bank of America acquired Countrywide in 2008. Under the…
Janney Montgomery Scott LLC has consented to pay $850,000 to resolve Securities and Exchange Commission charges that it failed to set up and enforce policies to prevent possible insider trading. The financial services firm also agreed to cease from further violations of laws that prevent the misuse of material, nonpublic…
Jennifer Kim, an ex-Morgan Stanley (MS) trader, has consented to a $25,000 settlement to resolve SEC allegations that she hid proprietary trades that that went above and beyond the financial firm’s risk limits. The alleged misconduct resulted in approximately $24.5m in losses for Morgan Stanley. SEC Commissioner Luis Aguilar, however,…
Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC) has consented to pay $125 million to settle allegations that it misled investors about the risks involved in mortgage-backed securities. The plaintiffs in the class action securities lawsuit include a number of public pensions, including the New Orleans Employees’ Retirement System, Government of Guam Retirement…
A Financial Industry Regulator Authority Panel has ordered WedBush Securities Inc. to pay one of its traders over $3.5 million for refusing to properly compensate him. According to claimant Stephen Kelleher, he worked for the financial firm for years without consistently getting the incentive-base compensation that he was promised as…