Financial Firms

Charles Schwab’s Barring of Customers from Joining Class Actions Violated FINRA Rules, Says Board of Governors

Published on: April 25, 2014 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

In a victory for the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, its Board of Governors has determined that Charles Schwab & Co. (SCHW) violated the self-regulatory organization’s rules when it added waiver language to agreements that prohibited customers from becoming part of any class action cases against the financial firm. Schwab has agreed to settle these claims with a fine of $500,000. Also, it will tell all its customers that the requirement is no longer in effect.

Schwab made amendments to the customer account agreement of over 6.8 million investors in 2011. The move came after it settled a class action securities case accusing the broker-dealer of misleading thousands of customers about its YieldPlus money market fund. (The fund sustained huge losses during the 2008 economic crisis, and to resolve the claims, Schwab agreed to pay $235 million.)

Included in the amendments were waiver provisions mandating that customers consent that any claims against the firm could only be arbitrated individually. Also, arbitrators would not be able to consolidate consolidated claims for more than one party.

Barclays Must Face Shareholder Lawsuit Over Libor Manipulation

Published on: April 25, 2014 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York says that Barclays Plc (BARC) shareholders can go ahead with their securities lawsuit claiming that the British bank caused them to suffer financial losses over manipulation of Libor. The ruling reverses a lower court’s decision.

The London Interbank Offered Rate is used to set interest rates on mortgages, credit cards, and student loans. It is also the average interest rate that banks can use to estimate what they would be charged if they borrowed from other banks. Regulators in Europe and the US have been investigating whether banks manipulated Libor when the 2008 financial crisis was happening.

In 2012, Barclays consented to pay British and American regulators $453 million and admitted that between August 2007 and January 2009 it frequently made Libor submissions that were artificially depressed. (Other big financial institutions that have settled Libor manipulation allegations included UBS AG (UBS), ICAP Plc (IAB), Rabobank, and Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS)).

U.S. Wants Bank of America to Pay Over $13B Over Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities

Published on: April 24, 2014 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

Bloomberg is reporting that U.S. prosecutors want Bank of America Corp. (BAC) to settle state and federal investigations into the lender’s sale of home loan-backed bonds leading up to the 2008 financial crisis by paying over $13 billion. The bank is one of at least eight financial institutions that the Department of Justice and state attorneys general are investigating for misleading investors about the quality of the loans that were backing mortgages just as housing prices fell.

A lot of Bank of America’s loans came from its purchase of Countrywide Financial Corp., a subprime lender, and Merrill Lynch & Co., which packaged a lot of the loans into bonds.

If there ends up being no deal, the government could sue the bank.

Barclays Settles Two Libor-Related Securities Cases

Published on: April 16, 2014 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

Barclays (BARC) has just settled two Libor-related securities cases alleging mis-selling related to Libor. In the first lawsuit, filed by Guardian Care Homes over interest swaps worth £70M that were linked to the benchmark interest rate, Barclays has agreed to restructure a loan for the home care operator.

The bank had tried to claim the case lacked merit and that it was the home care operator that owed money. Barclays argued that the swaps, purchased in 2007 and 2008, cost the bank millions of pounds when interest rates plunged in the wake of the economic crisis. In 2012, Barclays was fined $450 million for Libor rigging.

The London interbank offered rate is relied on for measuring how much banks are willing to lend each other money. Among the allegations against the firm was that it tried to manipulate and make false reports about benchmark interest rates to benefit its derivatives trading positions. Barclays settled with regulators in the US and the UK.

In the other Libor mis-selling case, the bank has arrived at a “formal” compromise in the securities case involving property firm Domingos Da Silva Teixeira over more rigging claims and Portuguese construction. The company had filed a 11.1 million euro securities case against the bank.

Also, this week, three ex-ICAP (IAP) brokers appeared in court in London to face charges accusing them of running a securities scam to manipulate the Libor benchmark interest rates. ICAP is the biggest interbroker dealer in the world.

The men allegedly engaged in conspiracy to defraud. Their scam allegedly involved Tom Hayes, an ex-yen derivatves trader. He is charged with multiple counts of conspiracy to commit fraud while he worked for UBS (UBS) in Japan.

To date, 10 banks and ICAP have been ordered to pay$6 billion in fines. The Libor rigging scandal spans multiple continents and led to numerous criminal charges. Traders are accused of fixing Libor for profit.

Barclays settles with Guardian Care Homes in Libor-linked court case, The Guardian, April 7, 2014

Three former ICAP brokers in UK court on Libor fixing charges, Reuters, April 15, 2014

Barclays settles second Libor case in week, Yahoo, April 11, 2014

More Blog Posts:
Deutsche Bank, Royal Bank of Scotland Settle & Others for More than $2.3B with European Union Over Interbank Offered Rates, Institutional Investor Securities Blog, December 24, 2013

Barclays LIBOR Manipulation Scam Places Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, JP Morgan Chase, and UBS Under The Investigation Microscope, Institutional Investor Securities Blog, July 16, 2012

PNC Bank Sues Morgan Stanley & Ex-Trust Adviser For “Surreptitious Conspiracy”

Published on: April 3, 2014 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

In U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania, PNC Bank (PNC) is suing Emily Daly, one of its ex-trust advisers, and her employer Morgan Stanley (MS). According to InvestmentNews, The bank contends that Daly allegedly stole trade secrets, solicited its clients, and violated her employment agreement when she switched firms. Meantime, Morgan Stanley is accused of helping her bring over the confidential data about clients.

Banks don’t like it when advisers take their customers with them when they go to another firm and nonsolicitation agreements can be violated as a result. Also, under PNC’s employment contract, employees are not allowed to take data that isn’t general industry knowledge or from a public source when they leave a firm. The bank contends that Daly helped transfer over $250 million in client assets to Morgan Stanley, which allowed the firm to make fees of about $ 1 million.

Daly even purportedly used her cell phone to take pictures of her computer screen when internal measures made it impossible to download lists of clients. Boxes of client data that were in Daly’s office are said to have gone missing.

Bank of America, Its Ex-CEO To Pay $25M to Settle Securities Case with NY Over Merrill Lynch Deal

Published on: March 31, 2014 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

Bank of America Corp. (BAC) and its ex-CEO Kenneth Lewis have consented to pay $25 million to settle the remaining big securities fraud case accusing them of misleading investors about the financial state of Merrill Lynch & Co. during the 2008 financial crisis. The New York securities case accuses the bank of deceiving shareholders by not disclosing Merrill’s increasing losses before the acquisition deal was closed or letting them know that the deal let Merrill give its officials billions of dollars in awards.

As part of the settlement, the bank will pay the state of New York $15 million and it will enhance its oversight. Lewis, meantime, has consented to pay $10 million and he cannot work at or serve as a director of any public company for three years.

Also named as a defendant in the securities lawsuit but who refused to settle is ex-Bank of America CFO Joe Price. NY Attorney General Eric Schneiderman intends to pursue a summary judgment against him, as well as ask a judge to reach a decision without a trial. Schneiderman reportedly wants Price permanently banned from serving as a director or working at a public company.

Bank of America Settles Mortgage Bond Claims with FHFA for $9.3B

Published on: March 29, 2014 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

Bank of America (BAC) will pay $9.3 billion to settle securities claims that it sold faulty mortgage bonds to Freddie Mac (FMCC) and Fannie Mae (FNMA). The deal, reached with the Federal Housing Finance Agency, includes $3.2 billion in securities that the bank will buy from the housing finance entities and a cash payment of $6.3 billion.

The mortgage bond settlement resolves securities lawsuits against the bank, Countrywide, and Merrill Lynch (MER). FHFA, which regulates both Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, accused Bank of America of misrepresenting the quality of the loans behind residential mortgage-backed securities that the mortgage financing companies purchased between 2005 and 2007.

This is the 10th of 18 securities lawsuits reached by the FHFA over litigation involving around $200 billion in mortgage-backed securities. To date, it has gotten back over $10 billion over such claims.

Citigroup and Royal Bank of Scotland Fail Federal Stress Test

Published on: March 26, 2014 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

A capital plan to reward investors with stock buybacks and dividends by Citigroup Inc. (C) was one of five to fail Federal Reserve stress test. The others that did not succeed were those involving the US units of Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc. (RBS), HSBC Holdings Plc. (HSBA), Zions Bancorporation (ZIONS) and Banco Santander SA (SAN). The central bank, however, did approve plans for 25 banks, including those from Bank of America (BAC) and Goldman Sachs (GS) after both lowered their dividend and buyback requests.

Regulators have been trying to prevent another financial crisis like the one in 2008 by conducting yearly tests on the way the biggest banks would do in a similar crisis. According to analysts, banks had intended to pay out about $75 billion in excess capital to raise returns and reward shareholders. This is the second year in a row that the Fed has taken issue with certain plans.

While Citigroup requested the least capital return among the five biggest banks in the country last year after its plan was turned down in 2012, this year it could have passed on just quantitative grounds. However, the central bank found numerous deficiencies in Citigroup’s planning practices, including whether it could project revenues and losses while under stress, as well as be able to properly measure exposures.

LPL Financial Fined $950K by FINRA for Supervisory Failures Involving Alternative Investments

Published on: March 25, 2014 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

FINRA says that LPL Financial, LLC must pay a fine of $950,000 for supervisory deficiencies involving the sale of alternative investment products, such as oil and gas partnerships, non-traded real estate investment trusts, managed futures, hedge funds, and other illiquid pass-through investments. By settling, the independent broker-dealer is not denying or admitting to the FINRA charges. LPL however, has agreed to an entry of the self-regulatory agency’s findings.

A lot of alternative investments establish concentration limits and certain states have even stipulated their own concentration limits for alternative investment investors. LPL also has set its own limits.

According to FINRA, however, from 1/1/08 to 7/1/12 LPL did not properly supervise the sale of alternative investments that violated of concentration limits. The SRO contends that even though initially LPL employed a manual system to assess if an investment was in compliance with requirements for suitability, the brokerage firm sometimes relied on inaccurate and dated data. Later, when LPL put into place a system that was automated to conduct the reviews, the system was purportedly not updated to make sure current suitability standards were correctly reflected and the programming in the database was flawed.

Securities America Under Investigation by Pennsylvania in Nontraded REIT Probe

Published on: March 24, 2014 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

The Pennsylvania Department of Banking and Securities is looking into the sales of nontraded REITs by Securities America employees. Ladenburg Thalmann & Co. Inc., which owns the broker-dealer and two other independent brokerage firms, said in its yearly report that the state regulator wants the brokerage firm to provide data about nontraded REITs that Pennsylvania residents have been buying since 2007. The request was made in October.

According to InvestmentNews, it is not known at this time if Pennsylvania regulators are just looking at nontraded REIT sales at Securities America or the investigation extends to other firms. It was just last year that Securities America, along with other independent brokerage firms, settled with the Massachusetts Securities Division over nontraded REIT sales.

Securities America paid $8.4 million in restitution to clients in that state along with a $150,000 fine. According to that probe, firms had difficulties abiding by their own policies as well as to the Massachusetts rule that an investor’s purchase of REITs cannot go beyond his/her liquid net worth.