Massachusetts claims that Morgan Stanley Smith Barney (MS) ran a high-pressure sales contest to give its financial advisers incentive to get clients to borrow funds against their brokerage accounts. Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin filed the complaint against the firm. According to the state, from 1/14 through…
An ex-participant in Morgan Stanley’s (MS) 401(k) plan is suing the financial firm. The plaintiff is alleging self-dealing and excessive retirement plan fees. Robert Patterson contends that the firm enriched itself at cost to employees. The case is Patterson v. Morgan Stanley et al. He is alleging breaching of fiduciary…
A U. S. district court judge said that Deutsche Bank AG (DB) must face part of a mortgage fraud case accusing the German bank of bilking investors who purchased over $5.4M of preferred securities. The plaintiffs, led by two individuals and Belmont Holdings Corp., claim that Deutsche Bank hid its…
A Financial Industry Regulatory Authority arbitration panel has awarded former NBA basketball player Keyon Dooling and ex-NFL athlete John St. Clair $819,000 in damages in their securities case against Morgan Stanley (MS). The two men accused the firm of negligent supervision of a former broker whom they blame for their…
The Securities and Exchange Commission says that Morgan Stanley Smith Barney LLC (MS) will pay a $1M penalty to resolve charges involving its purported failure to protect customer data. Some of this information was hacked and violators attempted to sell the data online. According to the regulator, the firm did…
Seven big banks have resolved a U.S. lawsuit accusing them of rigging ISDAFix rates, which is the benchmark for appraising interest rate derivatives, structured debt securities, and commercial real estate mortgages, for $324M. The banks that have reached a settlement are: · Barclays PLS (BCS) for $30M (In 2015, Barclays…
More than three years after IKB Deutsche Industriebank AG sued Morgan Stanley (MS) for over $147.1M in residential mortgage-backed securities, the brokerage firm is asking the New York appeals court to dismiss the case. Morgan Stanley claims that it was the German lender that did not conduct the necessary due…
The State of California is suing Morgan Stanley (MS) for allegedly selling bad residential mortgaged backed securities. According to lawmakers, the firm sold residential mortgage-backed securities as risky loans to subprime lenders while downplaying or hiding the risks and at times encouraging credit raters to bestow the securities with high…
FINRA Panel Awards Estate Over $34M from Morgan Stanley in the Wake of Churning Allegations A Financial Industry Regulatory Authority arbitration panel awarded the estate of Home Shopping Network Roy M. Speer over $34M in its case against Morgan Stanley (MS). The panel ruled that the firm, branch manager Terry…
Two North Carolina investors have filed an arbitration claim with FINRA against Morgan Stanley (MS) over unsuitable investments involving the financial firm’s Cushing MLP High Income Exchange Traded Note. The married couple, who are retirees in their sixties, are accusing the brokerage firm of: · Common law fraud · Negligence…