The Securities and Exchange Commission recently made a $37 million disbursement to more than 300,000 investors in the Columbia Funds who were injured in the widespread fraudulent mutual fund market timing scandal. The SEC said this was the first of four anticipated distributions of approximately $140 million total to be…
Morgan Stanley & Co. Inc. agreed to pay a $250,000 civil penalty to end claims by Rhode Island Regulators that it failed to supervise sales representatives who engaged in unethical and dishonest practices in the sale of mutual funds and variable annuities. According to the director of the Rhode Island…
The Securities and Exchange Commission filed suit in a New York Federal Court contending that Simpson Capital Management Inc., its owner and its head trader entered into late-trades in hundreds of mutual funds, defrauding the funds and their shareholders of approximately $57 million. The SEC claims that the defendants placed…
The NASD fined four firms for mutual fund sales violations and for failures to properly supervise such sales. The fine amounts are $473,000 against MML Investors Services, Inc., $354,000 against NYLIFE Securities LLC, $322,000 against Securities America, Inc. and $100,000 against Northwestern Mutual Investment Services. The violations charged include sales…
An SEC administrative law judge found that JB Oxford Holdings, Inc. “violated the forwarding pricing rule” when it executed trades after 4pm EST at the same day price, but found the firms former general counsel was not to blame. ALJ Robert Mahoney determined that JB Oxford Holdings was involved in…
“B Share”, or “back-end load”, mutual fund issues are being reconsidered by The Securities and Exchange Commission. The “B share” nick-name is derived from Rule 12 b-1 of the Investment Company Act of 1949, amended a quarter century ago to allow for the creation of such shares. To combat a…
The SEC is charging Clarion Management LLP and its hedge fund manager, John Fife, with allegedly buying variable annuity contracts, with the intention of taking part in market timing in mutual funds on behalf of the hedge fund. According to the SEC, in their lawsuit filed in the U.S. District…
Lawrence Lasser, the former CEO of Putnam LLC, has agreed to pay $75,000 to settle SEC charges that he neglected to make sure the company carried out its fiduciary duties. The Securities and Exchange Commission issued the following statement on January 9, the day that Lasser agreed to pay the…