The Securities and Exchange Commission has filed charges against American Pension Services Inc., a third-party administrator of retirement plans based in Utah and its founder Curtis L. DeYoung. The regulator says that they caused clients to lose about $22 million in risky investments involving certain business ventures. American Pension Services…
Eric Bloom, the CEO of Sentinel Management Group, Inc., the now bankrupt hedge fund, has been convicted of bilking over 70 customers of more than $500 million prior to the firm’s collapse. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Bloom misappropriated securities that belonged to customers when he used the…
A number of pension funds in the US are suing BP (BP) for fraud. The institutional investors, including funds for public workers in Texas, Louisiana, and Maryland, and Bank of America’s (BAC) private pension plan, claim, that the corporation bilked them when it made misstatements about the Deepwater Horizon oil…
The Securities and Exchange Commission has filed a financial fraud case against Total Wealth Management Inc., an investment advisory firm based in Southern California. The regulator is accusing the firm of getting undisclosed kickbacks over investments recommended to clients. It is also alleging breach of fiduciary duty. According to the…
The US Securities and Exchange Commission has filed fraud charges against TelexFree Inc. and TelexFree LLC over an alleged Pyramid scam that targeted immigrants-those from Brazil and the Dominican Republic, in particular. The agency sought and was able to obtain an asset freeze, securing millions of dollars. Also facing charges…
U.S. District Judge Laura Taylor Swain has approved the criminal settlement reached between the US Department of Justice and SAC Capital Advisors LP. The hedge fund, which was founded by Steven A. Cohen, consented to pay a $1.8 billion penalty and plead guilty to insider trading charges that resulted in…
The US Securities and Exchange Commission has filed securities fraud charges against Joseph Signore, Paul L. Schumack II, and their respective companies for their Florida-based Ponzi scam that purportedly used YouTube videos to target hundreds of US investors to get them to invest in virtual concierge machines that were supposed…
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 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…
The Securities and Exchange Commission is getting ready to revisit a 2008 rule proposal about exchange-traded funds. In the wake of new issues that have cropped up since then, changes to the original proposal are likely. Speaking at the Investment Company Institute’s Mutual Fund and Investment Management Conference this week,…