The New York Stock Exchange Regulation Inc. is disciplining nine companies and eight people for numerous violation. The firms disciplined include: Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith: Fined $100,000 for violating rule 123c about 480 times when it cancelled or submitted securities orders after the mandatory cutoff period. Citigroup Global…
Merrill Lynch will soon report third quarter earnings which analysts have revised downward. An analyst at competitor Goldman Sachs says that Merrill’s earnings for the third quarter will be about $1.80 per share, down from $1.95 and lowered Merrill’s stock price target to $94 from $108. The Goldman analyst predicted…
Former Merrill Lynch employee Hydie Sumner sued that firm saying she was sexually harassed. She was represented by lawyer Linda Freidman. In 2004, a panel of three NASD arbitrators decided Hydie was right and awarded her $2.2 million. They also forced Merrill to reinstate her. Meanwhile, an email was allegedly…
Usually lawsuits must be filed within a few years after the wrongful acts, or when one knew or should have known of the wrongdoing. For example, federal and most state securities laws require lawsuits to be filed by 2 or 3 years after the problem is known or made public,…
A NASD arbitration panel ordered Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc. to pay an Iranian former employee $1.6 million, for claims that his boss set him up to be fired after discovering his ethnicity. Merrill is currently defending a suit filed in court by another Iranian who has also accused the…
Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Smith Barney and Charles Schwab are being sued for claims they improperly directed their clients’s funds into lower paying deposit accounts at affiliate banks, enabling those banks to reap billions in extra profits. Attorneys for investors seek permission to add Wachovia, based on “sweep” accounts it…
Three former brokers of Citigroup, Merrill Lynch and Lehman Brothers face a second trial on charges they conspired to commit fraud by allowing day traders to eavesdrop on orders being discussed on investment firms’ internal “squawk boxes.” Four current and former executives at the day trading firm A. B. Watley…
As class actions against investment firms face dismissal, attorneys for investors plan to go forward with claims for individual shareholders against those same firms. After the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit decided that cases in Houston against Merrill Lynch and other investment banking firms could not…
A Houston Federal Court was set to begin tiral on class actions filed on behalf of investors against several fiancial firms that allegedly assisted Enron to defraud shareholders. However, a Federal Court of Appeals, with most of its judges selected by the Bush-Cheney administration, stepped in to overturn the class…
The SEC is considering whether to change a rule that could require brokers to reveal whether they have “shelf-space” programs, which treats certain fund companies preferentially in exchange for payment by the fund. Its first point-of-sale disclosure rule had pushed for brokerage firms to reveal the actual amount that they…