Financial Firms

Morgan Keegan Must Buy Back Auction-Rate Securities and Pay $110,500, Says District Judge

Published on: February 12, 2013 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

A US District judge is ordering Morgan Keegan & Co. to repurchase auction-rate securities and make a payment of $110,500 in an ARS lawsuit filed by the SEC that accuses the financial firm of misleading investors about these investments’ risks. The SEC contends that the $2.2B in securities that the firm sold left clients with frozen funds when the market failed in 2008.

Even after the financial firm started buying back ARS—it has since repurchased $2B in ARS of its own accord—the SEC decided to proceed with its securities case. The Commission contends that even as the ARS market failed, Morgan Keegan told clients that the securities being sold came with “zero risk” and were short-term investments that were liquid.

Now, Judge William Duffey Jr. has found that although Morgan Keegan’s brokers did not act fraudulently, some of them acted negligently when they left out key information and made misrepresentations when selling the securities. This including not apprising investors about the risk of failure, liquidity loss, or that interest rates might vary.

Duffey is the same judge who dismissed this very case in 2011. However, last May, the US Court of Appeals in Atlanta overturned his decision after determining that he wrongly found that verbal comments made to certain customers were not material because of disclosures that could be found on the financial firm’s web site.

Morgan Keegan Trial Judge to Decide SEC Case He Dismissed, Bloomberg.com, November 26, 2012

More Blog Posts:
Morgan Keegan Founder Faces SEC Charges Over Mortgage-Backed Securities Asset Pricing in Mutual Funds, Institutional Investor Securities Blog, December 17, 2012

Judge that Dismissed Regulators’ Claims Against Morgan Keegan to Rule on ARS Lawsuit Again After His Ruling Was Reversed on Appeal, Institutional Investor Securities Blog, November 27, 2012

Court Upholds Ex-NBA Star Horace Grant $1.46M FINRA Arbitration Award from Morgan Keegan & Co. Over Mortgage-Backed Bond Losses, Stockbroker fraud Blog, October 30, 2012

JP Morgan Sued by Dexia in $1.7B MBS Lawsuit

Published on: February 11, 2013 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

Dexia SA (DEXB) is suing JP Morgan Chase & Co. (JPM ) for over $1.7 billion. In its mortgage-backed securities lawsuit, the Belgian-French bank contends that the loans underlying the securities that the US bank sold it were riskier than what they were represented to be.

JP Morgan and its companies, Washington Mutual (WM) and Bear Stearns Co., are accused of “egregious” fraud for allegedly making and selling mortgage bonds backed by loans that they knew were “exceptionally bad.” Dexia claims it sustained substantial losses.

According to The New York Times, there are a slew of employee interviews and internal e-mails related to this MBS lawsuit that talk about how the three firms disregarded quality controls and problems—perhaps even concealing the latter—in order to make a profit from these mortgages that were packaged into complex securities. They are accused of seeking to avail of the mortgage-backed securities demand during the housing boom even as doubts began to arise about whether or not these investments were good quality. Court filings report that JPMorgan would get mortgages from lenders that didn’t have stellar records, assigning Washington Mutual and American Home Mortgage a “poor” grade on its “internal ‘due diligence scorecard.’” The loans were then swiftly sold off to investors.

Oppenheimer Must Pay $30M to US Airways Group Over ARS Losses

Published on: February 9, 2013 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

A Financial Industry Regulatory Authority arbitration panel says that Oppenheimer & Co. has to pay US Airways Group Inc. (LCCC) $30 million for losses that the latter sustained in auction-rate securities. The securities arbitration case is related to the airline group’s contention that the financial firm and one of its former brokers misrepresented certain ARS that were structured and private placement.

US Airways had initially sought $110M in compensatory damages and $26 million in interest and legal fees. The FINRA panel, however, decided that Oppenheimer and its ex-broker, Victor Woo, owed $30 million—Woo’s part will not be greater than what he made in commissions. Oppenheimer is now thinking about whether to submit a motion to vacate the arbitration panel’s order.

The financial firm is, however, going to go ahead with the arbitration it had filed against Deutsche Bank (DB) to get back the award money and associated costs from this case. Oppenheimer’s claim against Deutsche Bank is linked to the US Airways case but became a separate proceeding in 2010.

JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, Bank of New York Mellon, Charles Schwab Disclose Market-Based NAVs of Money Market Mutual Funds

Published on: February 7, 2013 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

While regulators continue pondering whether to impose more regulations on money market mutual funds, a number of financial institutions, including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS), JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM), Fidelity Investments, BlackRock Inc. (BLK), Bank of New York Mellon Corp. (BK), Federated Investors Inc. (FII), and Charles Schwab Corp.,(SCHW), started disclosing the market-based net asset values of these funds last month. Reasons given for these disclosures included offering greater transparency and giving investors more information about the market. However, some believe there are firms are issuing these disclosures because that is what their competitors are doing.

Currently, money market funds have a $1/share stable net asset value for all investor transactions. The underlying assets of the funds, which are debt securities with high ratings, however, can undergo periodic, small value changes that may slightly affect a fund’s per share market value. This is also called the shadow price, which are reasonable estimates/fair valuations of the price that an instrument could be sold at in a current trade.

A few years ago, the Securities and Exchange Commission approved modifications to its Rule 2a-7 and other rules about money market funds mandating that managers of the funds reveal changes to portfolio holdings and give the regulator the market-based net asset values of the funds. Fund information for each month has to be given to the SEC at a succeeding month. The Commission then makes the information available to the public 60 days after the month to which the data pertains has concluded. These Daily disclosures would make the data more immediate (and relevant) for investors.

Goldman Sachs Cleared in Securities Fraud Case Against Dragon Systems for Losses Related to $250M Loss in Sale to Lernout & Haspie

Published on: January 31, 2013 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

In US District Court in Boston, a federal jury has decided that Goldman Sachs (GS) isn’t at fault for the $250M sustained by the owners of Dragon Systems Inc. after they sold their speech recognition company to Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products for $580M. Goldman had served as adviser to Dragon over the deal.

L & H, which is based in Belgium, went bankrupt after the acquisition amidst reports that it was inflating its sales figures and revenue and fabricating customers. The company’s top executives went to jail.

Plaintiffs Janet and James Baker, who own Dragon, had accused Goldman of negligence for failing to detect the fraud that was taking place L & H. Their lawyer claims that the financial firm took the job despite lacking the experience needed to properly sell this type of technology company. Dragon paid Goldman $5 million for its services. (The Bakers have already settled other cases related to the L & H acquisition of Dragon for $70M.

UBS & Citi Do Have to Arbitrate Auction-Rate Securities Case Filed by Health Care Nonprofit Carilion Clinic

Published on: January 31, 2013 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

According to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, a district court was right when it decided not to stop Carilion Clinic’s arbitration proceeding against Citigroup Global Markets (C) and UBS Financial Services (UBS) for an ARS issuance that proved unsuccessful. The financial firms had served the healthcare nonprofit in a number of capacities, including providing underwriting services.

Carilion had retained UBS and Citi in 2005 to raise over $308M so that it could redo its medical facilities. They are accused of recommending that Carilion put out over $72M of bonds in the form of variable demand rate obligations and $234 million in ARS.

When the auction-rate securities market took a huge dive in February 2008, Citi and UBS ended their policy of supporting the market and the auctions started to fail. As a result, result, Carilion allegedly was forced to refinance what it owed to avoid higher interest rates and it sustained losses in the millions of dollars. The nonprofit later began auction-rate securities arbitration proceedings with FINRA against both firms.

US Seeking to File Criminal Charges Against Royal Bank of Scotland Group in Interest-Rate-Rigging Settlement Involving Libor

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

Authorities in the United States want to reach a settlement with Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS.L) that would require that the British bank plead guilty to criminal charges and pay about $790M in penalties to Britain and America over its alleged involvement in last year’s Libor-rigging scandal. RBS would be the third bank to settle over interest-rate-rigging allegations. UBS AG (UBS) and Barclays PLC (BCS) reached settlements last year that together totaled almost $2 billion. They both admitted to committing wrongdoing.

Prosecutors want an RBS unit where some of the alleged rate-rigging occurred to plead guilty to attempting to manipulate the rates. Currently, reports The Wall Street Journal, RBS executives are balking at making such an admission, especially because it could make exposure to securities lawsuits greater. However, ultimately the decision is up to the US Justice Department.

Meantime, at least a dozen other banks around the world are still under investigation for trying to manipulate Libor and Euribor. Bloomberg reports that it has obtained documents that show that for years traders at numerous banks worked with colleagues tasked with establishing the Libor benchmark to rig the price of money. The traders reportedly knew each other from work or from trips involving interdeal brokers. The manipulation of the Libor is believed to have gone on for years.

US Supreme Court to Hear Appeals of Petitioners Over Stanford Ponzi Lawsuits

Published on: January 25, 2013 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

Our Texas securities fraud law firm has been bringing you the latest legal news developments in the efforts of defrauded investors to recoup their losses stemming from the $7 billion Stanford Ponzi scam. While the fate of R. Allen Stanford has already been sealed-he is serving 110 years in prison, which is essentially the rest of his life-for many of his victims how and when all of them will recover their losses still remains a big question mark.

On Friday, the US Supreme Court agreed to hear three petitioners’ appeals over the sale of bogus certificates of deposits from Stanford’s Antigua bank. The requests come from insurance brokerage Willis Group Holdings Plc., which has been accused of being involved in the bogus CD sales that Stanford used to defraud his clients, and two law firms that used to represent Stanford himself. They want the court to determine whether or not under the Securities Litigation Uniform Standards Act plaintiffs can assert state-law class action claims against the petitioners.

While a federal judge said in 2011 SLUSA does preempt such state law cases, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the fifth circuit later went on to revive the securities lawsuits. Now, it will be up to the nation’s highest court to make the final call.

JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon Blames Regulators for Problems in the Wake of Economic Crisis

Published on: January 23, 2013 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

Speaking at a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Jamie Dimon, the chief executive officer of JPMorgan Chase (JPM), said that one reason many of the issues from the 2008 financial crisis have yet to be fixed is because new regulations have made things more complex. Dimon said that not only is too much being attempted too quickly, but also he believed that regulators have become too overwhelmed by the rules.

Dimon said that rather improving the system, during the last five years there has been a great deal of placing blame and exchanging misinformation. He did, however, praise the Federal Reserve, which he said saved “the system” by coming to the rescue after Lehman Brothers failed.

“It’s unbelievable that Mr. Jamie Diamond would be complaining so loudly about regulations,” said Institutional Investment Fraud Lawyer William Shepherd. “Among other gambling woes, his company just took a $6 billion loss on one of his traders bets! Look where deregulation of the financial markets got us 5 years ago! After the 1929 debacle, laws were passed to regulate these markets. One outlawed banks and securities firms being under the same umbrella. In fact, this is how Morgan Stanley (MS) was formed, as a forced spinoff of JP Morgan Bank. Lawmakers had decided that banks insured by FDIC, thus the taxpayers, should not gamble in the securities markets. Unfortunately, that law was repealed, and less than 10 years later our financial system collapsed again. Congress should have simply reinstituted the ban on such combined firms but has instead voted out far less protection. Stop your wining Jamie!

Mom of Baby Born with Cancer Sues Barclays Capital for $10M for Alleged Wrongful Termination

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

According to ABC News, Rachel Walsh, 32, has filed a $10 million lawsuit against Barclays Capital claiming that they fired her because she had to take a long leave of absence and subsequently terminated her child’s health coverage. Walsh’s child was born with cancer.

She is alleging gender discrimination and breach of contract. Because Walsh waived her right to a trial when she signed her employment agreement with the financial firm, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority will be arbitrating her case.

Walsh was hired by Barclays to fill the position of global finance assistant vice president. (Prior to that she worked at Merrill Lynch (MER) and Ernst and Young.) During her first year with the financial firm, she was given a bonus, a raise, and a good end-of-year review. She also became pregnant but continued to work until three week prior to her delivery date when her doctor ordered her to bed due to pregnancy complications.