In what is being called the SRO’s largest fine to date over e-mail violations, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority announced that it is fining LPL Financial LLC $7.5 million over 35 key e-mail system failures. The financial firm also has to set up a $1.5 million fund to compensate customers…
Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts William Galvin announced today that the state has reached a $9.6M securities settlement with five independent brokerage dealers-Ameriprise Financial Services Inc. (AMP), Commonwealth Financial Network, Lincoln Financial Advisors Corp., Royal Alliance Associates Inc., & Securities America Inc.-over the allegedly inappropriate sale of nontraded real…
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority says that LPL Financial LLC must pay a $7.5 million fine for inadequately supervising more than 28 million business emails between 2007 and 2013. This is the largest fine the SRO has ever imposed over an e-mail case. According to FINRA, LPL’s systems for overseeing…
In Australia, two Morgan Stanley (MS) customers are suing the financial firm for $5 million because they say that is much their superannual accounts lost because of alleged misrepresentations made by broker Kate Kearney. Helen Sedman, 74, and Sally Middleton, 61, claim that Kearney deceived them into thinking that an…
According to California Attorney General Kamala Harris, JP Morgan Chase (JPM) filed about 100,000 credit card debt collection lawsuits between 2008 and 2011 without conducting sufficient research to properly assess the cases’ merits. The bank reportedly submitted 200 lawsuits over 15 weeks in 2011, including 32 lawsuits on January 5,…
Ex-Commission Officials, Others Want DC Circuit to Grant Stanford Ponzi Scam Victims SIPC Protection Former SEC Officials, law professors, and trade groups are among those pressing the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to reject the regulator’s bid to compel Securities Investor Protection Corporation coverage for…
Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC) has consented to pay $105M to investors of the now failed Medical Capital Holdings Inc. The bank had served as trustee for Medical Capital securities. The medical receivables financing company got about $2.2 billion from thousands of investors between 2001 and 2009 via the private…
Class action securities plaintiffs, led by the Iowa Public Employees’ Retirement System, have settled their mortgage-backed securities lawsuit against Countrywide for $500 million. This is the largest federal class action MBS securities case in the US that has been resolved to date, even exceeding the $315 million settlement reached with…
Bank of America Corp’s (BAC) Merrill Lynch & Co. (MER) will pay the state of New Jersey $45 million to settle securities charges that it committed misconduct related to a stock purchase that the latter made in 2008. The investment bank is accused of breaching a contract provision that determined…
Investor Korine Brown is seeking class action status on behalf of those that also participated in General Motors Inc.’s Personal Savings Plan for hourly employees in her securities case against Fidelity Investments Institutional Operations Co. Inc. and Fidelity Management and Research Co. She is alleging breach of fiduciary duty. This…