Broker Fraud

Broker-Dealer National Planning to Pay $6.2M FINRA Arbitration Award to Two Minnesota Investors Over REITs

Published on: December 3, 2013 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

A Financial Industry Regulatory Authority panel says that National Planning Corp. must pay a $6.2 million REIT arbitration award to Minnesota investors Stacy and Ronnie Erickson. The Erickson and trusts on their behalf accused the independent brokerage firm and its ex-brokers Christopher R. Olson of negligence, breach of fiduciary duty, misrepresentations, and industry rule violations involving real estate investment trusts.

According to the FINRA award, which doesn’t name the REITs that the Ericksons invested in, the claimants also invested in real estate investments in Waterway Holdings Group, which Olson and a Preferred Resource Group Inc. employee owned. Olson has since filed for bankruptcy and all claims against him have been halted. (Olson was allowed to resign from NPC after he failed to disclose his external business activities or the involvement of his clients in these undertakings. After he quit he registered with Berthel Fisher & Co. Financial Services Inc.)

The Ericksons say that in addition to becoming the victims of broker fraud, they had to fulfill outstanding loans on mortgages on the real estate investments to avoid foreclosure. They contend that Olson manipulated them into taking on significant debt, paying millions of dollars that they cannot get back, and annuitizing, liquidating, and structuring their investment assets that were for their retirement to pay back the “staggering” debt that resulted from the real estate investment recommendations.

FINRA Bars Broker Accused of Selling Over $18M in Fraudulent Promissory Notes to NBA, NFL Athletes, & Others

Published on: November 21, 2013 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority has banned ex-Success Trade Securities Inc. broker Jinesh “Hodge” Brahmbhatt from the industry. The broker is accused of selling over $18 million in fraudulent promissory notes to 58 investors, which included many National Football League and National Basketball Association athletes. Brahmbhatt’s registered investment adviser firm is Jade Private Wealth Management LLC.

In its letter of acceptance, waiver and consent, FINRA cites Brahmbhatt for failing to show up and testify at a disciplinary hearing about his former employer and its CEO Fuad Ahmed. The SRO is accusing the firm and its chief executive of fraudulent promissory notes sales and filed its complaint in April.

FINRA said that the notes, put out by parent company Success Trade, were sold with the promise of yearly 12% to 26% interest rates. Sale proceeds purportedly went to personal unsecured loans to Ahmad, paid for firm operations, and paid off past investors. FINRA has alleged that Success Trade tried to get note holders to either get stock in the company or roll over notes that were maturing at higher rates.

Massachusetts Securities Regulators Fine Merrill Lynch $500,000 For Alleged Failure to Stop Rogue Broker

Published on: October 29, 2013 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

Merrill Lynch Pierce Fenner & Smith Inc. (MER) must now pay Massachusetts securities regulators a fine for allegedly failing to supervise a broker who went on to defraud customers. According to regulators and prosecutors, when she was with Merrill, now ex-broker Jane E. O’Brien borrowed over $2 million of clients’ funds. She pleaded guilty to fraud charges last year and is barred from the securities industry.

O’Brien received a thirty-three month prison term and was told to pay restitution of $240,000. She was the top producer at the firm’s Boston office, where she brought in close to $154 million in client assets and earned $903,734 in revenue during her first year with Merrill. Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin, whose office oversees the regulators there, said that this was another example of top producers “being held to a different standard” because of the money they make for their firms.

Although Merrill agreed to pay the “failure to supervise” fine, it has not admitted to violating any laws. A firm spokesperson says that as soon as they knew there might be a problem, an internal investigation was conducted and O’Brien resigned.

North American Securities Administrators Association Releases 2013 List of Top Threats to Investors

Published on: October 22, 2013 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

The North American Securities Administrators Association has issued its yearly list of the top investor threats. The list is compiled through a poll of its member state securities administrators. With the enactment of Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act, which takes away the advertising restrictions when it comes to soliciting securities and other investments, now more than ever investors should be cautious.

The List:
Private Offerings (especially fraudulent private placement offerings, also known as Reg D/Rule 506 offerings): These are limited investment offers that are very liquid, poorly regulated, and have very little transparency. They are risky and might not be suitable for individual investors. Now, with the JOBS Act, these private placement offerings can be promoted to the general public, which means ads for them may be placed on billboards, social media, and other platforms even though not everyone who sees them is qualified to invest.

REITs: Real estate investment scams may involve new development projects or buying, or beleaguered properties. Non-traded real estate investment trusts that are owned by banks or waiting for foreclosure or short-sale can be problematic for customers, as can investment funds purportedly tied to interest in real property that has no equity and is very leveraged.

Ponzi Scams and High-Yield Investments: High-yield typically translates to greater risk. This type of investment program and Ponzi scams promise great returns and low risk while justifying why the opportunity is so great. Financial fraudsters will typically tout bogus credentials or belong to a certain organization or group and early investors get a return as they market to new investors. Such financial scams eventually collapse.

Affinity Fraud: This type of financial fraud targets members of a particular organization or group. Often, the fraudster is trusted because of the shared affiliation (ie. age demographic, membership, alma mater, ethnicity, religion, etc.)

Self-Directed IRAs Used to Cover up Fraud: Self-directed individual retirement accounts, which are typically safe investments, can be used to conceal a financial scam. Fraudsters may claim that the custodian of an account has more obligations than actual to investors, causing the latter to wrongly believe that their investments are protected from loss and/or legitimate.

High Risk Oil and Gas Drilling Programs: Energy investments that for some investors are becoming a preference over traditional bonds, stock, and mutual funds. They are very risky and really only appropriate for investors that can take huge losses. Unfortunately, some promoters will hide these risks and pressure customers to invest.

Proxy Trading Accounts: This can involve allowing individuals who say that they are experienced traders to manage or set up a trading account for you. It is not recommended for investors to let unlicensed persons have access to your brokerage account information or set up an account for you. Anyone who manages such an account for an investor should be properly registered and have a clean record.

Digital Currency: Virtual money such as PP Coin, Bitcoin, and others. Such coinage isn’t backed by tangible assets, not subject to a lot of regulation, and not government issued. Digital currencies’ value can be very volatile.

NASAA’s Top Investor Threats, North American Securities Administrators Association
Securities and Exchange Commission

Financial Industry Regulatory Authority

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FINRA Suspends and Fines GlobaLink Securities Principal

Published on: September 19, 2013 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

FINRA is fining GlobaLink Securities Registered Principal Junhua Michael Liao $20,000. According to the SRO’s findings, through Liao, the firm executed an agreement to sell and market a Regulation D offering comprised of promissory notes for a medical receivables financing company. The financial firm then is said to have sold over $1.2 million of the notes to certain customers, resulting in about $56,700 in commissions.

FINRA also said that during the period in question, it was Liao’s job as the compliance officer for the firm to makes sure that GlobaLink Securities set up, kept up, and enforced a supervisory system and written supervisory procedures designed to ensure compliance with regulations and laws and rules that were applicable. The agency said that while the financial firm did keep up written supervisory procedures regarding private placement sales, the WSPs were not sufficient and lacked specific details about how the firm was to perform due diligence, handle transactions, ensure that a Regulation D product was appropriate for investors, and document GlobaLink’s actions and decisions pertaining to the transactions.

FINRA said that because of the deficient WSPs and inadequate supervision, the firm did not perform proper due diligence on the offerings and that this stopped GlobaLink and Liao from finding out that the issuer had previous payment problems on other note offerings, which resulted in the private placement memorandum misrepresenting the past performance of that issuer. Liao consented to the described sanctions as well as to the SRO’s entry of findings. In addition to the fine, he received a one-month suspension from associating with any other FINRA member in any type of principal role.

Registered Representatives Get FINRA Bar Following Securities Fraud Allegations

Published on: September 13, 2013 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

Texas Registered Rep Under Investigation for Financial Fraud Declined to Turn in Supplementary Documents

Conrad Tambalo Bautista, a registered representative in Texas, is now barred from associating with any other Financial Industry Regulatory Authority member in any capacity. While not denying or admitting to the SRO’s findings, Bautista agreed to the described sanction as well as the entry of findings.

According to FINRA’s findings, Bautista would not respond to its requests for supplemental documents related to a customer complaint about him. The SRO had asked for certain financial data for an investigation into whether/not he took part in fraudulent financial scams, private securities transactions or external business activities, borrowed customers’ money, or failed to disclose an IRS tax lien.

“Ask and It Shall Be Received”: Securities Brokers Can Wipe Complaints and Even Legal Claims Off Their Public Records

Published on: June 20, 2013 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

The New York Times is reporting that on May 24, a Financial Industry Regulatory Authority panel of arbitrators granted Wells Fargo (WFC) broker Michele Kief ‘s request that it recommend that the securities complaint, in which the bank settled for $125,000 allegations of fraud and negligence related to her actions, be deleted from her record. They also agreed that it be noted that the investments at issue were “suitable and safe. “There at least eight other client disputes on BrokerCheck against Kief. BrokerCheck is FINRA’s regulatory database.

Just two months before, FINRA arbitrators also consented to recommend the deletion of a securities arbitration complaint against ex-Charles Schwab (SCHW) executive Kimon P. Daifotis. This was the eighth such recommendation against Daifotis, who ran the Schwab Yield Plus fund that led investors to lose hundreds of millions of dollars.

“As FINRA publishes, advertises and encourages investors to check a broker’s record to gain information about their broker or a prospective broker, FINRA arbitrators often wipe that record clean.” Says William S, Shepherd, a securities attorney who represents investors in cases against brokers. “Everyone would like to wipe our credit record clean, maybe we just need to ask. Also, there is no educational requirement to become a securities broker, not even a high school degree. The only requirements are a 4-month apprenticeship and passing a multi-state state and a FINRA examination. Yet, securities brokers manage millions, some even hundreds of millions, of investors’ money. Their average six-figure income brokers places them in the highest percentiles of earnings in the U.S, along with other licensed professionals. Public disclosures are, and should be, important for those who often turn over their retirement accounts and even entire life savings to be handled by those who call to extoll their expertise.”

Securities Fraud Roundup: FINRA Examiners See Rise in Brokers Engaging in Improper Activities, SEC Chairman Backs Stronger Enforcement of Civil Penalties Act, & About 800 Investor Fraud Scam Defendants Accounted for Since 2011

Published on: November 26, 2012 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

According to Financial Industry Regulatory Authority EVP Susan Axelrod, the SRO’s examiners are reporting an increase in how many brokers appear to be taking part in questionable actions outside their firms or improperly selling securities. Speaking at the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association’s complex products forum, she pressed brokerage firms to make sure its compliance programs will sniff out such violations.

Axelrod also said that FINRA examiners are noticing issues with the firms’ complex product sales, including those involving reverse convertibles and non-traded real estate investment trusts. For example, several firms did not conduct reasonable due diligence before selling non-traded REITs or make sure they were suitable for the investors. As for the reverse convertibles, examiners reportedly discovered an overconcentration of products in certain investor portfolios primarily due to poor recommendations. Failure to detect such problems appeared to have played a factor in this happening. Other problems discovered included inadequate training regarding products, product misrepresentation via sales and advertising, and failure to notify investors well in advance that products’ per-share estimated values had been repriced at figures significantly lower than the offering price.

In other securities news, Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Mary Schapiro wants Congress to grant the SEC the power to impose penalties that are more reflective of the losses sustained by investors. Right now, the agency can only pursue ill-gotten gains’ disgorgement and impose per-violation penalties. Schapiro said that the Stronger Enforcement of Civil Penalties Act of 2012, which was introduced by Senators Jack Reed and Charles Grassley, would give the Commission the authority it needs to make violators “think twice” about abusing investors’ funds while allowing the regulator to recover significantly more for victims. She expressed her views at the New England Securities Conference last month.

Securities Roundup: FINRA Tells Broker Dealer to Cease-a-Desist Its Allegedly Fraudulent Sales, SEC Supports Creation of Variable Annuities Summary Prospectus, & US Supreme Court Hears Amgen & Comcast Appeals to Shut Down Class Action Lawsuits

Published on: November 15, 2012 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

FINRA has filed a temporary cease-and-desist order barring WR Rice Financial Services Inc. and Joel I. Wilson, its owner, from taking part in allegedly fraudulent sales activities and the conversion of assets or funds. The SRO is also filing a securities complaint accusing both the Michigan based-brokerage firm, Wilson, and other registered representatives of selling over $4.5 million in limited partnership interests to approximately 100 investors while leaving out or misrepresenting material facts.

Per the broker fraud case, the broker-dealer and Wilson got investors to participate by promising them that their funds would be placed in land contracts in Michigan on residential real estate and that the interest rate they would get would be 9.9%. The money was instead allegedly used for unsecured loans to companies under Wilson’s ownership or control.

In other securities news, the SEC’s Division of Investment Management director Norm Champ recently stated that the Commission’s report on retail investors and their financial literacy gives basis for creating a summary prospectus for variable annuities. Speaking via teleconference at the American Law Institute-Continuing Legal Education Group conference on life insurance products on November 1, Champ reported that investors in the study agreed that the mutual fund summary prospectuses were user-friendly. He expressed optimism that a summary prospectus for variable annuities could give significant disclosures and related benefits if designed and implemented well and that the framework used for the mutual fund summary prospectus should prove to be an effective model.

Appeal of Stockbroker Found Liable in Unauthorized Trades of Cyberonics Stock is Rejected by 7th Circuit

Published on: August 18, 2012 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit is rejecting the appeal filed by stockbroker Kevin Wells, who was found liable for making unauthorized trades of Cyberonics Inc. (CYBX) in a customer’s account. In an initial default judgment, the customer, plaintiff William Wehrs, was awarded approximately $49,861 in damages.

Per the court, Wehrs sued Wells after the alleged unauthorized trades occurred and cost him “significant losses.” When Wells did not appear in court or respond to the securities fraud lawsuit, a default judgment was entered in Wehrs’s favor. Meantime, Wells’ supervisor and his financial firm chose to settle with Wehrs.

Following the default judgment, Wells filed an appeal, challenging the decision by the district court to deny his motion to vacate the default judgment as it pertains to liability. He also contended that the district court abused its discretion when it did not consider evidence that he believes demonstrates he not the proximate cause of a large amount of the losses that Wehrs suffered.