The Indiana Secretary of State’s Office filed an administrative complaint today accusing Stifel Nicolaus & Co.’s local office of securities fraud, failing to properly train members of its sales team, and failing to disclose risks associated with purchasing auction-rate securities. As a result, some 141 Hoosiers who had invested $54.0…
Citigroup Global Markets, Deutsche Bank Securities, and UBS Securities have agreed to pay fines for Financial Industry Regulatory Authority sanctions over their handling of Vonage LLC stock’s initial public offering in 2006. FINRA says that the firms’ failure to adequately supervise communications with customers cost investors hundreds of thousands of…
Regions Bank has agreed to a $1 million fine to settle SEC allegations that it helped defraud some 14,000 investors. Most of the affected investors are based in Latin America. According to the SEC, Regions Bank helped two unregistered broker-dealers, U.S. College Trust Corp. and U.S. Pension Trust Corp., commit…
Following a Texas securities fraud claim that Bank of America‘s Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Inc. allowed unregistered sales persons to sell securities, the Bank of America unit has agreed to pay $26.5 million as part of a national settlement over the allegations. The state of Texas’s portion of…
A former broker who was fired from both AG Edwards, Inc.and Stifel Nicolaus & Co. has been ordered to serve a 21-month federal prison sentence for selling fraudulent investments to Stifel Nicolaus clients. Neil Rolla Harrison told clients that they were investing in commodities futures or the gold market when…
UBS AG must post a $35.6 million bond, says Superior Court Judge John Blawie. Blawie says that hedge fund Pursuit Partners, LLC has sufficient evidence to pursue its securities fraud case claiming that the investment bank knew it was selling collateralized debt obligations that were toxic to institutional investors but…
Following a dispute that was resolved in arbitration, broker-dealer Morgan Keegan & Co. must pay former NBA player Horace Grant $1.46 million. The amount is the largest arbitration loss for Morgan Keegan to date. Morgan Keegan is the securities brokerage firm of Regions Financial Corp. The award, issued by the…
A district court judge issued his preliminary approval of a proposed $150 million settlement in the securities class action lawsuit against Merrill Lynch. The securities fraud lawsuit was filed for purchasers of specific Merrill Lynch preferred securities and bonds. The plaintiffs of the Bond Action had invested in over $24…
Citigroup Inc. sales assistant Tamara Lanz Moon has been barred from the securities industry by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority. Moon is accused of stealing over $850,000 from at least 22 clients who were either sick, elderly, or unable to closely monitor their accounts for some other reason. Her father…
The plaintiffs of some 166 of the 221 cases filed against Merrill Lynch & Co. since January 1, 2009 are alleging securities fraud-related violations. This means that Bank of America Corp, which acquired the broker-dealer at the beginning of the year, has assumed responsibility for the outcome of these civil…