Financial Firms

UBS Warns Investors to Stay Away from Puerto Rico Bond Funds

Published on: July 27, 2015 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

In a complete turnaround, UBS AG (UBS) is now telling clients to step away from Puerto Rico bond funds. Reuters reports that in a recent letter, the firm’s Puerto Rico arm told clients that they would be contacted shortly regarding alternative investments.

Reasons cited for the warning is that the funds can no longer be used as loan collateral in the wake of the U.S. territory’s financial woes. Puerto Rico is currently $72 billion in debt. Concerns over its economy were not eased when Governor Alejandro García Padilla recently asked the island’s debt holders for help in postponing bond payments and restructuring the Commonwealth’s debt.

Reuters also reported that in the letter to UBS customers – issued on July 13 – UBS said the firm would lower the collateral value given to every Puerto Rico closed-end fund share to zero. However, noted the news agency, despite the declaration of zero value for the funds’ shares, the brokerage firm continues to list share prices on its website.

UBS Puerto Rico’s decision to reject the funds as collateral shows just how high risk the firm now views these investments. According to Sam Edwards, a partner in Shepherd, Smith, Edwards & Kantas, who is currently representing dozens of Puerto Rico investors, “UBS came up with the scheme to use the Closed-End Funds as collateral for loans from UBS Bank since they were not eligible for margin loans. It was that leverage against already internally leveraged losses that causes some of the worst losses on the island. UBS is now pulling the plug on its own plan and effectively admitting this was a faulty idea and not only too risky for investors, but now, too risky for UBS, who designed the plan in the first place.”

Once again, the evidence appears to support that UBS is protecting itself at the expense of its customers.
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Ex-Oppenheimer Employees Resolve SEC Charges Over Unregistered Penny Stock Sales

Published on: July 25, 2015 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

The Securities and Exchange Commission said that Scott A. Einsler, Arthur W. Lewis, and Robert Okin, three former Oppenheimer & Co. (OPY) employees, have settled charges involving the unregistered sales of billions of shares of penny stocks for a customer. The actions are related to part of an enforcement action that the brokerage firm settled with the regulator, as well as with the U.S. Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. Under that agreement, the firm paid $20 million to resolve those claims.

In this latest order instituting administrative proceedings that have been resolved, Eisler, who used to be a registered representative at an Oppenheimer Florida branch, is accused, along with former supervisor and branch manager Lewis, of executing the penny stock shares in illegal unregistered distributions. While securities laws grant exemption liability for brokers who make a reasonable inquiry into the facts involving the proposed sale of a customer, the SEC said that the two men did not make the required inquiry even though there were significant warning signs. Also, according to the regulator, Lewis and Okin, previously the head of the private client division, committed supervisory failures when they did not address the warnings.

To resolve the proceedings against him, Eisler consented to pay $50,000 and he will be barred from the securities industry and penny stock sales for a year. Lewis also will pay a penalty for the same amount and his bar from the industry in a supervisory capacity is also for a year. Okin will pay $125,000 and also serve a yearlong supervisory bar from the industry. All three men agreed to settle without denying or admitting to the SEC’s findings.

SEC Probes Whether Mutual Fund Managers Are Charging Investors Undisclosed Fees

Published on: July 24, 2015 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

The Securities and Exchange Commission is looking into whether Franklin Templeton, Oppenheimer Funds (OPY), J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. (JPM), and other mutual fund managers are charging investors for fund fees that have not been fully disclosed. While money managers are allowed to use some of investors’ money to pay compensation to the brokers who sell a fund’s shares, as well as for certain marketing purposes, the regulator wants to know whether firms are exceeding the allowed limits.

The Commission is trying to find out whether mutual fund companies have come up with ways to make extra payments to brokers by using investor assets to cover certain services, such as the consolidation of client trading records. The agency is worried that proper disclosure of these added fees are not being made to investors. The SEC is also wondering if brokers are more inclined to recommend funds that provide such additional payments, compelling them to prioritize profit over funds.

Fund companies have said that they do properly disclose fees for marketing. Oppenheimer, which is one of the companies that the SEC has investigated over this issue, has said that it doesn’t bill mutual fund clients for recordkeeping costs but that the money comes from the firm.
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Wells Fargo Must Pay Woman Over $8M For Alleged Fraud Involving Childhood Trust

Published on: July 22, 2015 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

Wells Fargo Bank (WFC) must pay a Dallas woman over $8 million. Texas State Judge Emily Tobolowsky said that the bank defrauded Angela Militello in its role as trustee for a trust that family members set up for her when she became an orphan at the age of seven.

Militello contends that in 1999, a trust officer sent to her by the bank told her to set up a new account and gave her papers for establishing a revocable trust. After Militello filed for divorce in 2006, she asked the trust officer about withdrawing $200,000 from the trust to purchase a home for her and her child.

The trust officer gave her a check for that amount and a form asking for approval of the completed sale of a percentage of the assets in the trust. The remainder of assets was to be sold within a few months. Militello claims that Wells Fargo and a third party conspired to sell the assets in her trust at way below market value and fraudulently charge her tfor the property taxes after a buyer purchased the assets.

JPMorgan Settles Class Action Mortgage-Backed Securities Case for $388M

Published on: July 17, 2015 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) has consented to pay $388 million to resolve a securities lawsuit filed by investors claiming that the bank misled them about the safety of $10 billion of mortgage-backed securities (MBSs). Included among the plaintiffs in the case are the Laborers Pension Trust Fund for Northern California, the Fort Worth Employees’ Retirement Fund, and the Construction Laborers Pension Trust for Southern California.

The funds, and other investors in nine offerings that were made prior to the financial crisis, contend that JPMorgan misled them about the appraisals, underwriting, and credit quality of home loans that were underlying the securities. Following the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. in 2008, the certificates’ value dropped to 62 cents on the dollar.

JPMorgan is settling the case but has denied any wrongdoing. It will be up to a judge to decide on whether to approve the deal.

According to a copy of the securities action filed in 2010, the lawsuit is for entities and persons that acquired the bank’s Mortgage Pass-Through Certificates. The certificates involved were allegedly sold pursuant to or traceable to a misleading Registration Statement from 2007, as well as misleading and false Prospectus Supplements that also were issued that year. According to the Complaint, examples of purportedly false and misleading statements found in offering documents included claims that the loans had received investment grade credit rating, and loans backing the Certificates had specific loan to value ratios.

OppenheimerFunds Says Puerto Rico Can Repay Its $72B Debt

Published on: July 16, 2015 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

OppenheimerFunds Inc. (OPY) is disputing Puerto Rico Governor Alejandro García Padilla’s contention that the island cannot pay back its $72 billion debt. The New York-based mutual fund company said that based on data about income growth, sales-tax collection, and unemployment, the U.S. territory’s economy can withstand repaying creditors.

According to Bloomberg data, as of July 9, OppenheimerFunds, which is the largest holder of Puerto Rico municipal bonds, had about $4.4 billion of uninsured obligations from the island. Aside from insured debt, re-refunded securities, and tobacco bonds, these obligations make up 13.8% of Oppenheimer’s municipal fund holdings.

As Puerto Rico bonds continue to lose value-data shows that this year alone Puerto Rico bonds suffered a 9.5% loss-OppenheimerFunds’ municipal funds also have suffered. Bloomberg reports that for 2015,the company’s state funds in Arizona, Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey, and North Carolina, which all hold Puerto Rico securities, sustained the largest losses among single-state, open-end muni funds.

When García Padilla asked for wide-ranging restructuring of the territory’s debt last month, OppenheimerFunds said it would defend the terms of the bonds it holds. The firm does not believe the territory’s fiscal health will get better even if some of Puerto Rico’s agencies file for bankruptcy protection.
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LPL Financial Fined $250K by Massachusetts Over Misrepresentations Made to Senior Investors

Published on: July 14, 2015 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin has fined LPL Financial (LPLA) $250K to resolve charges that its representatives misrepresented their qualifications when working with older investors. The state’s regulator claims that the brokerage firm approved having brokers use senior-specific titles on their business cards. The titles were not in compliance with the state’s regulations regarding senior designations.

After Galvin’s office discovered one such incident, LPL conducted an internal probe and discovered that at least 10 brokers may have been using titles that were not in compliance with the state’s Senior Designations Regulations. The regulator said that the firm had even approved the title on one broker’s business card more than once.

Galvin contends that since June 2007, LPL failed to establish or enforce a procedure allowing it to look at senior-specific titles to make sure they complied. He noted the importance of not using titles that imply one has an expertise in advising senior investors when there is none. The Senior Designations Regulations prohibit the use of titles that imply a training or certification that the titleholder doesn’t actually possess.
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Massachusetts Regulator Charges Securities America Over Bait and Switch Ads By Broker Accused of Targeting Senior Investors

Published on: July 11, 2015 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin is charging Securities America with inadequate supervision of a broker who is accused of using a “grossly deceptive” radio ad campaign to target older investors. The state regulator said that the financial firm shouldn’t have approved the spots that Barry Armstrong ran on his AM radio show. His show, which airs on WRKO-AM, is syndicated on different stations.

The broker purportedly ran ads asking listeners to call for information related to Alzheimer’s Disease when what Armstrong really was doing was collecting their contact information so he could offer to sell them financial advice. Galvin’s office said that the broker engaged in ‘bait and switch’ by falsely advertising one service when he was really selling another type of service.

The regulator contends that Securities America failed to identify or prevent Armstrong’s unethical conduct by neglecting to ask even one question about the content of the ads or attendant mailing materials. Now, the state wants a censure, a cease-and-desist order, and a fine imposed against the firm.
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Ex-Deutsche Bank Employees May Face Libor Rigging Charges

Published on: July 11, 2015 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

Bloomberg reports that according to sources, the U.S. Department of Justice is getting ready to file securities charges against former employees of Deutsche Bank AG (DB) for manipulating the London interbank offered rate. The government is looking at five ex-traders who may have rigged the U.S. dollar equivalent of the interest-rate benchmark. If the criminal charges do go through these would be the first ones against the German bank’s traders over Libor.

Earlier this year, Deutsche Bank agreed to pay $2.5B to regulators for rigging Libor and other benchmarks: $600M to the New York Department of Financial Services, $775M to the DOJ, $800M to the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, and $340M to the U.K’s Financial Conduct Authority. The latter had doubled its fine because of what it considered the bank’s “slow” and “ineffective response to questions and purportedly “false, inaccurate, or misleading” statement that it made.

The global settlement included a ban against Deutsche Bank’s traders who had engaged in interest rate rigging. The bank’s DB Group Services in the U.K. also pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud for its involvement in the scam to defraud counterparties to interest rate swaps by manipulating U.S. Dollar LIBOR contributions.

Wells Fargo, LPL Financial, and Raymond James to Pay Investors of Retirement Accounts and Charities Over $30M for Mutual Fund Overcharges

Published on: July 6, 2015 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority said that LPL Financial, LLC (LPLA), Raymond James & Associates (RJF), Raymond James Financial Services, Wells Fargo Advisors, LLC (WFC), and Wells Fargo Advisors Financial Network, LLC must pay over $30M in restitution plus interest to customers who were impacted when the firms did not waive mutual fund sales charges for certain retirement and charitable accounts. According to the self-regulatory organization, between July 2009 and the end of 2014 the financial firms either improperly overcharged certain investors who had purchased Class A mutual fund shares or sold them Class B or C shares instead. The latter two come with ongoing, high back-end fees.

Mutual funds typically offer different share classes for sale. Each class has its own sales fees and charges. Although Class A shares come with an initial sales charge, they usually have lower annual fees than Class B and C shares. However, mutual funds will usually waive Class A sales charges when selling them to charities and some retirement accounts.

The broker-dealers offered these waivers for the retirement and charitable plan accounts under limited conditions. The waivers also were disclosed in prospectuses. Yet, according to FINRA, at various times since at least July 2009, the firms did not actually waive the sales charges for these customers when they were offered the Class A shares.

Because of this, contends the agency, over 50,000 eligible retirement accounts and charitable organizations either paid sales charges for the Class A shares or bought other share classes that required them to pay higher ongoing fees and other expenses. FINRA said that the firms did not properly supervise the sale of these mutual funds and depended on its brokers to offer the waiver discounts even though they weren’t properly trained.