Financial Firms

Ex-MF Global Chief Jon Corzine and CFTC Arrive At Tentative Settlement

Published on: September 9, 2016 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

According to the New York Times, Ex-MF Global Chairman and CEO Jon S. Corzine has reached a tentative agreement with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in the regulator’s civil case against him. The CFTC sued him 2013 after MF Global failed and the futures brokerage firm was accused of misusing $1B in customer funds.

Corzine, 69, used to be the governor of New Jersey, a Democratic US Senator, and the co-chief of Goldman Sachs (GS). Although the settlement is not yet final, sources tell the NY Times that Corzine could be expected to pay up to $5M in penalties, which is a lot more than what the CFTC could win against him at trial. The regulator would like Corzine to pay the penalties out of his own fund and not use insurance money. He also would be expected to accept a lifelong ban from trading other people’s funds in the futures industry.

Corzine has not been charged with any criminal wrongdoing related to the MF Global financial debacle. Although the CFTC has not said that Corzine was directly connected to the misuse of funds at the brokerage firm, the regulator felt that he failed to “diligently supervise” the firm as it placed clients’accounts in peril.

MF Global went into a financial tailspin after Corzine made a $6.3B bet on European sovereign debt. Rather than restore the brokerage firm to profitability, the firm began to fail and the improper transfer of customer monies increased as executives sought to enhance liquidity. MF Global was eventually liquidated in bankruptcy.

Securities News: Ex-Fannie Mae CEO Settles Mortgage Fraud Case, WL Ross to Pay Back $11.8M to its Funds, SEC Chastises Bank of America For Not Explaining COO’s $15.5M Compensation, and Pension Returns Drop

Published on: August 29, 2016 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

Former Fannie Mae CEO Settles SEC Charges for $100K
Daniel Mudd has agreed to pay $100K to settle Securities and Exchange Commission charges accusing the ex-Fannie Mae CEO of misleading investors about the degree to which the mortgage company was exposed to subprime loans leading up to the 2008 economic crisis. The regulator had filed its civil case against Mudd and two other Fannie Mae executives in 2011. The latter two settled with the Commission last year.

Mudd maintains he did nothing wrong.

WL Ross Resolves Fee-Allocation Disclosure Charges
WL Ross & Co. will reimburse specific WL Ross funds about $11.8M to resolve SEC charges related to its fee allocation practices and disclosures. The firm will also pay a $2.3M civil penalty.

According to the SEC, WL Ross was given transaction fees by portfolio companies. This lowered the management fees that funds had to pay the firm. The regulator points to WL Ross’s limited partnership agreements that were unclear regarding fee offsets when multiple funds and other co-investors share ownership.

Morgan Stanley and Edward Jones Are Sued in Separate 401(K) Lawsuits

Published on: August 22, 2016 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

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 duty under ERISA. Patterson believes that plan participants sustained millions of dollars in losses in retirement funds from 1/11 through 4/14 because of the alleged breaches.

He is seeking class action status for case over the losses sustained and he wants the firm to pay $150M. The Morgan Stanley 401(k) Plan includes several Morgan Stanley mutual funds. According to the complaint these funds suffered “high relative fees” and/or “poor relative performance.” Although there were a number of non-proprietary investments included in the retirement plan, Patterson claims that they also performed poorly.

Meantime, Edwards Jones is also now a defendant in a 401(k) lawsuit. The plaintiff is a plan participant who claims that the firm caused employees to pay excessively high fees for record keeping and investment management services that purportedly resulted in the loss of millions of dollars in retirement savings. The proposed class-action lawsuit is McDonald v. Edward D. Jones & Co. L.P. et al.

CFTC and FINRA File Charges Against Deutsche Bank Over Swap Data and Information Transmitted Over Squawk Boxes

Published on: August 20, 2016 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission has filed a civil case against Deutsche Bank AG (DB). According to the regulator, for five days the firm, which is a provisionally registered Swap Dealer, did not report any swap data for a number of asset classes, turned in untimely and unfinished swap information, failed to supervise the staff responsible for the reporting of the swap data, and had an inadequate Business and Continuity and Disaster Recovery Plan.

The bank’s swap data reporting system had suffered a System Outage. The CFTC said that the swap data reported prior to and after the outage showed that there had been ongoing problems with specific data fields and their integrity. As a result, the market data issued to the public was affected. Some of it purportedly continues to be affected to this day. The CFTC said that a reason for the System Outage and the reporting problems is that Deutsche Bank lacked an adequate Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Plan or another supervisory system that was equally satisfactory.

Earlier this month, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority fined Deutsche Bank $12.5M for substantive supervisory failures involving trading-related information and research that the firm had issued to employees over internal speakers, also referred to as squawk boxes. The self-regulatory organization said that even though there were red flags related to this matter, Deutsche Bank neglected to set up supervision that was adequate over both the access that registered representatives had to the “squawk,” or “hoots,” which is the information issue through the squawk boxes, and the communication of this data to customers.

Securities Fraud News: Hedge Fund Manager Accused of Securities Fraud Involving Payoffs to the Terminally Ill, SEC Halts Trading in Neruomama Shares, and Commodity Pool Fraud Leads to More than $10M in Penalties and Restitution

Published on: August 17, 2016 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

Investment Advisor Firm Accused of Paying Off Terminally Ill Patients to Commit Fraud
The SEC has filed fraud charges against Donald Lathen and his Eden Arc Capital Management. Lathen is accused of recruiting at least 60 individuals who had less than six months to live and agreeing to pay them $10K each for the use of their names on joint brokerage accounts. When one of these individuals would die, he would allegedly redeem the investments by falsely representing that he and the terminally individual person were joint account holders.

Lathen recruited the terminally ill patients through contacts he had at hospices and nursing homes. In reality, it was Lathen’s hedge fund that owned the option investments.

As a result, of the purported omissions and misrepresentations, issuers paid over $100M in early redemptions. Lathen is accused of violating the custody rule by not properly putting the securities and money from the hedge fund in an account under the name of the fund or in one that held only client money and securities.

SEC Stops Trading in Neromamam Ltd.
The SEC has stopped the trading of Neuromama Ltd. (NERO) shares. The shares trade on the mostly unregulated over-the-counter markets and the regulator is concerned about transactions that may be “potentially manipulative, as well as other red flags that have purportedly been cropping up for years.

Neruomama’s paper value went up times four to $35B this year despite not much volume. The company’s shares went up by four times to $56/share. (On January 15, ’14, its value was $4.73B.)

Ex-Goldman Sachs Trader to Pay $400K Fine to Settle RMBS Fraud Case

Published on: August 16, 2016 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

Edwin Chin, an ex-Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) senior trader, will pay $400K to resolve U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charges accusing him of misleading the bank’s customers when he sold them residential mortgage-backed securities at prices that were higher than they should have been. Even though he is settling, Chin is not denying or admitting to the regulator’s findings. He has, however, agreed to the entry of the order stating that he violated the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5.

According to the Commission’s order, from 2010 until 2012, which is when Chin left the bank, the former Goldman trader made extra money for the firm by concealing the prices that it had paid for different RMBSs and reselling the securities at higher prices to customers. The difference in cost would go to Goldman.

The SEC said Chin made over $1.5M in additional trading profits. Because Goldman made more money, Chin did as well.

The regulator accused Chin of sometimes misleading buyers by suggesting that he was in the process of negotiating a transaction between customers when he was merely selling residential mortgage-backed securities from Goldman’s inventory. In one alleged incident, Chin earned an additional $200K by telling a hedge fund client that he would sell a bond at cost price and without compensation. Unfortunately, he purportedly neglected to tell the hedge fund that he had already bought the security, had it in inventory, and was charging the fund a worse price than what Goldman paid earlier that day. The SEC said that Chin misled the same client about the price of a different security the following day, resulting in an additional $100K in profit.

UBS to Pay $250K For Not Waiving Mutual Fund Fees

Published on: August 13, 2016 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority said that a UBS Group AG (UBS) unit will pay $250K to resolve charges accusing it of not waiving certain fees for mutual fund customers that were eligible for the reduction. FINRA said that the broker-dealer overcharged customers $277,636 to invest in mutual funds. The failure to wave these fees purportedly took place from 9/09 to 6/13.

The self-regulatory organization cited alleged supervisory failures. According to the settlement notice, UBS depended largely on its registered representatives to identify when sales charge waivers were warranted and identifying them. These waivers were linked to the reinstatement rights that let investors get around having to pay front-end sales charges.

Under these rights, individual investors are generally allowed to reinvest money made from selling class A mutual fund shares in the same fund family or the same fund without having to pay fees at the front end. They are given 90-120 days to reinvest for the waiver to be applicable.

US Attorney Bharara Asks Second Circuit To Reconsider Overthrown Mortgage Fraud Verdict Against Countrywide

Published on: August 9, 2016 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

The U.S. Attorney for Manhattan’s Southern District is asking the Second Circuit Court of Appeals to look at a ruling that overturned the jury verdict that held Countrywide Home Loans liable for mortgage fraud. Countrywide, which is now owned by Bank of America (BAC), made billions of dollars on home loans that went into default following the 2008 financial crisis.

It was in 2007 that the mortgage provider introduced a new program, referred to as the “high-speed swim lane,” to process applications for mortgages. Within Countrywide, the program was dubbed the “hustle.”

The program did not include the majority of conditions required to make sure loans would be paid back after Wall Street banks, Freddie Mac, or Fannie Mae sold them to investors. Unfortunately, Freddie and Fannie were not told that these conditions had become more relaxed or that loans no longer met certain criteria. The two mortgage finance firms had tightened their own loan buying requirements and underwriting guidelines. As a result of the loosened restrictions by Countrywide, contended the Justice Department, “rampant instances of fraud” resulted.

Despite the 2013 jury verdict that found Countrywide and a Bank of America executive liable for mortgage fraud, a Second Circuit judge panel overruled the decision. It found that even though Countrywide purposely breached contracts, this was not fraud because the lender had not intended to fool customers at the time that contracts were signed.

Now, U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara wants a Second Circuit panel of judges to consider that Countrywide made false statements when selling loan bundles to customers, including Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. He said that the court bypassed evidence at trial that showed how the defendants made fraudulent misrepresentations when selling the loans and while the contracts were being executed. Prosecutors are arguing that the language in the contract refers to each mortgage sale during the actual sale and not upon the writing of the contract.

Securities Headlines: FINRA Wants Ex- Merrill Lynch Adviser to Pay Monetary Sanctions Over Misleading Recommendations, Four Life Insurers Must Pay $3.4M Related to Death Benefits, and JPMorgan Settles with Indiana Over Proprietary Products for $95OK

Published on: August 5, 2016 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

Ex-Merrill Lynch Adviser Accused of Misleading Clients with IRAs
Landon L. Williams, and ex-Merrill Lynch adviser who is no longer registered with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, is accused of misleading five of the firm’s clients by giving them inaccurate information when issuing recommendations for investments. All of the clients had individual retirement accounts. At the time, Williams served as a Merrill Lynch Edge Advisory Center adviser for a year until August 2014.

Merrill Edge customers have less than $250K in accounts. Instead of working with one broker, they work with a team of advisers.

In its complaint, FINRA note a couple of examples, including when Williams allegedly told one customer that the yearly operation cost of a fund was 1.113% when, in fact, it was 1.28%. He purportedly informed one client that she would be able to make up her front-end sales charges in three years even though his notes related to that fund said that she would make them up in seven years.

FINRA is seeking monetary sanctions.

Life Insurance Companies Settle with U.S. States Over Unclaimed Death Benefits
Securian Financial Group Inc., Hartford Financial Services Group, Standard Insurance Co., and Great American Insurance Group have reached a $3.4M settlement with the state insurance departments of North Dakota, Florida, California, Pennsylvania, and New Hampshire. The deal is related to the payment of unclaimed death benefits.

Primus Pacific Partners Sues Goldman Sachs for $510M

Published on: August 5, 2016 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) is a defendant in a securities lawsuit brought by Primus Pacific Partners. Primus used to own 20% of Eon Capital, a Malaysian lender. In its complaint, brought in the New York State Supreme Court, Primus accused Goldman and ex-Managing Director Tim Leissner of hiding that there were conflicts of interest involving Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak and the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), which is a sovereign wealth fund.

Goldman had been advising Eon Capital when the latter was considering a takeover offer from Hong Leong Bank Bhd, which is a Malaysian bank. According to Primus, in January ’10, Goldman and Leissner determined that Hong Leong’s first bid wasn’t fair. A few months later later, however, they decided that a revised offer that was only 2.8% greater was fair and recommended that Eon Capital take the deal.

The plaintiff believes that Goldman approved of the higher bid because it was seeking to impress the Malaysian Prime Minster whose brothers would benefit from a merger. Nazim Rajak worked for Hong Leong as a director while Nazir Rajak was chairman of CIMB Group Holdings Bhd, which advised Hong Leong about its takeover bid of EON Capital.