Financial Firms

Despite Her Involvement in Dozens of Securities Cases, Brokerage Firms Continue to Clear Trades of Newport Coast Securities Broker Bambi I. Holzer

Published on: January 10, 2013 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

Three years after Forbes magazine wrote an article exposing broker Bambi Holzer as someone whose investment advice to clients had resulted in more than $12M in securities settlements, brokerage firms continue to clear her trades. Over the years there have been dozens of complaints filed against her for improper broker activities-more than nearly anyone that we here at Shepherd Smith Edwards and Kantas, LTD, LLP have ever seen.

Holzer is currently a Newport Coast Securities broker, but her employment history with different broker-dealers within the industry has involved numerous financial firms. According to the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, she was previously registered with Wedbush Morgan Securities Inc., Brookstreet Securities Corporation, and Sequoia Equities Securities. Holzer also worked with UBS (UBS), where she and the firm were compelled to pay at least $11.4 million to settle securities claims that she had allegedly misrepresented variable annuities by misrepresenting that they came with guaranteed returns. Following her time there, Holzer went to go work at AG Edwards (AGE), where she was fired in 2003 for engaging in business practices allegedly not in line with the policies of the firm.

Later, while at Brookstreet, Holzer allegedly made misrepresentations during a 2005 presentation in Beverly Hills about how trusts had allowed a fictional couple to defer $732,000 in taxes and make $9 million. She would later say on her website that 500 people watched her that day. However, a court document says that there were actually just 33 people in attendance.

Also while at Brookstreet, NASD, FINRA’s predecessor suspended Holzer for 21 days and ordered her to pay a $100,000 fine for negligent misrepresentations she allegedly made about certain product features related to variable annuities when she worked at PaineWebber. And an example of one complaint still pending against Holzer is the FINRA arbitration claim filed in early 2010 by a Wedbush Morgan Securities customer who is contending that account mishandling, breach of fiduciary duty, and breach of contract allegedly resulting in $824,000 in damages.

Holzer’s record on FINRA’s Central Registration Depository is 105 pages long, and the lawsuits and regulatory disciplinary actions against her span over 90 of these pages. Allegations include:

• Violations of the Illinois Securities Act • Negligent representations related to variable annuities
• Fraud • Misrepresentations of fees • Unsuitable investments
• Private placement-related fraud • Churning • Variable annuity-related fraud • Inadequate supervision • Elder abuse
• Negligent sale/recommendation of Provident Royalties, LLC • Negligent recommendation/sale of unsafe products, including the Behringer Harvard Security Trust

Many of the FINRA claims against Holzer involve private placement and variable annuity instruments. A lot of these arbitration cases have resulted in substantial settlements.

Beware of Your Broker, Forbes, March 25, 2009

FINRA Central Registration Depository

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Ernst &Young Auditor Suspended Over Part Played in Botched 2004 Audit of AA Investors Management LLC, Stockbroker Fraud Blog, January 7, 2013

SEC Roundup: Massachusetts Investment Adviser Gets $1.78M Judgment and Allianz to Pay $12.3M to Settle Foreign Corrupt Practices Act Lawsuit, Stockbroker Fraud Blog, January 7, 2013

Clearing House Association Wants Greater Protections for Clearing Members, Institutional Investor Securities Blog, December 31, 2012

Pension Plans’ Shareholder Derivative Claims Against UBS is Reinstated by 1st Circuit Appeals Court

Published on: January 4, 2013 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit has reinstated the shareholder derivative claims filed by two Puerto Rican pension funds against UBS Financial Services Inc. (UBS) Judge Kermit Lepez said that following de novo review—a district court had dismissed the case on the grounds that a failure to properly plead demand futility was subject to such an examination—it seemed to him that the plaintiffs’ allegations sufficiently show reasonable doubt about six fund directors’ ability to assess the former’s demand to bring this action with the independence and disinterest mandated by Puerto Rican law.

The two pension funds are the owners of shares in closed-end funds that made investments, which were not successful, through UBS entities. Their investment adviser and fund administrator is UBS Trust, which is a UBS Financial affiliate.

According to the court, UBS Financial, which has been Puerto Rico’s Employee Retirement System (ERS) financial adviser for more than five years, underwrote $2.9B of ERS-issued bonds. Meantime, the UBS Trust bought approximately $1.5B of the ERS bonds and then sold them to funds. At issue is about $757M in bonds that the two Puerto Rican funds purchased.

Morgan Stanley Must Pay Ex-Manager $1M

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

A Financial Industry Regulatory Authority arbitration panel says that Morgan Stanley (MS) Smith Barney has to pay Gregory Carl Torretta $1 million. The financial firm’s ex-manager claims that he was forced to unfairly resign.

Torretta had sought $8 million to $9 million for what he claims were wrongful termination and the breach of his employment contract. Torretta contends that Morgan Stanley had accused him of criticizing the performance of a branch manager, whom he was about to fire, and that he was going to take that person with him to another firm. The allegations surfaced after the branch manager, who was unhappy with the oversight, wrote Torretta implying that the latter had talked about leaving the brokerage firm and suggested that he also leave with him. The branch manager cc’ed Torretta’s boss on the email.

Torretta says that the firm then told him he could either resign or be fired, so he resigned. He is now employed with Ameriprise Financial Services Inc. (AMP). The branch manager was letter let go.

Stockbroker Fraud Headlines: Wells Fargo Banker Charged Over $11M Insider Trading, Morgan Stanley to Resolve Facebook IPO Action for $5M, & SEC Accuses Canadian Broker of Inadequate Day Trader Supervision

Published on: December 28, 2012 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

Wells Fargo Banker and 8 Others Accused of Alleged $8M Insider Trading Scam

The U.S. Attorney for the Western District of North Carolina is charging Wells Fargo (WFC) investment banker John Femenia and eight alleged co-conspirators with involvement in an alleged $11 million insider trading scam. Femenia is accused of stealing confidential data from his employer and its clients about acquisitions and mergers that were pending. He then either directly or via others tipped his co-conspirators, receiving kickbacks in return.

According to the N.C. government, the insider trading scam resulted in $11M in profits. While six of the co-conspirators opted to plead guilty to conspiracy to commit insider trading, Femenia and the other two have been indicted on multiple charges of conspiracy and insider trading. The same defendants, and another person, are also named in the SEC lawsuit over the scheme.

Stockbroker Fraud Headlines: Securities Claims Against Lehman Underwriters Are Dismissed, NYSE Euronext Works on Kill-Switches Plan, and SEC Calls for Structured Products Ratings Roundtable

Published on: December 24, 2012 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

Securities Claims Against Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. Underwriters Are Dismissed

The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York has thrown out the California Corporations Code claims made against the underwriters of two offerings of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. debt securities per the precluding of the 1998 Securities Litigation Uniform Standards Act. This, despite the fact that the securities case was brought by one plaintiff and lacks class action allegations.

The SLUSA’s enactment had occurred to shut a 1995 Private Securities litigation Reform Act loophole that let plaintiffs filing lawsuits in state courts circumvent the Act’s tougher securities fraud pleading requirements. It generally allows for federal preemption of state law class actions contending misrepresentations related to the buying or selling of a covered security. However, the court granted the motion to dismiss noting that even though the securities case was brought only on the State Compensation Insurance Fund’s behalf, it is still a covered class action within the act’s meaning.

Dismissal of Double Derivative Delaware Securities Lawsuits Over The Bank of America-Merrill Lynch Merger is Affirmed by the Second Circuit

Published on: December 22, 2012 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has affirmed the dismissal of Lambrecht v. O’Neal and Sollins v. O’Neal, two double derivative actions that were brought under Delaware law for Bank of America Corp. (BAC) and its subsidiary Merrill Lynch & Co. The cases were brought by Merrill shareholders contending wrongdoing. (Because Bank of America acquired Merrill, following the stock-for-stock swap, these shareholders are now BofA shareholders.)

The actions were an attempt to make Bank of America board of directors mandate that Merrill sue some of the subsidiary’s officials over allegedly reckless investments that were made. Finding that the actions were a result of unprecedented losses experienced by Merrill because it had invested aggressively in mortgage-baked securities (including collateralized debt obligations) before it was acquired by Bank of America, the district law court dismissed both actions for different but related reasons under Delaware law. In Sollins, the court said that the plaintiff’s predecessor-in-interest submitted the action without making presuit demand on the board yet did not demand futility. As for the Lambrecht action, while that lawsuit made three demands on the Bank of America board, it did not demonstrate that the bank had wrongfully denied the request that claims be made against ex-Merrill officials.

The Second Circuit, in its unpublished summary order, said that it sees no error in the rulings made by the district court. The appeals court noted that while Sollins suggested that Bank of America was “complicit” in Merrill’s alleged pre-merger wrongdoing involving the subprime market by letting the latter issue bonuses at 2007 levels, consenting to indemnify Merrill directors over pre-merger wrongdoing, approving the merger without figuring out Merrill’s growing losses, sealing the deal despite serious misgivings about the firm’s financial state, and not doing a good enough job of notifying investors about losses, his arguments are not properly placed. The district court was therefore correct in stating that the plaintiff cannot “boostrap” his claims against Merrill related to the subprime market onto the merger-related allegations against Bank of America to get around the demand request.

Morgan Keegan Founder Faces SEC Charges Over Mortgage-Backed Securities Asset Pricing in Mutual Funds

Published on: December 17, 2012 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has filed civil charges against Morgan Keegan founder Allen Morgan Jr. and several other former mutual fund board members for allegedly failing to supervise the managers accused of inaccurately pricing toxic mortgage-backed assets prior to the financial crisis. According to Reuters, this is a rare attempt by the regulator to hold a mutual fund’s board accountable for manager wrongdoing and it is significant. (Fund manager James Kelsoe hasconsented to pay a $500,000 penalty related to this matter and he is barred from the securities industry in perpetuity. Comptroller Joseph Thompson Weller consented to pay a $50,000 penalty.)

Last year, Morgan Keegan and Morgan Asset Management consented to pay $200 million to settle SEC subprime mortgage-backed securities fraud charges accusing them of causing the false valuations of the securities in five funds and failing to use reasonable pricing methods. (This allegedly led to “net asset values” being calculated for the funds.) The inaccurate daily NAVS would then be published and investors would buy shares at inflated prices. The funds’ value eventually declined significantly.

According to the Commission, the eight ex-board members violated laws mandating that fund directors help decide what a security’s fair value is when market quotations don’t exist. Instead of trying to figure out how fair valuation determinations work, the directors allegedly gave this task to a valuation committee but without providing “meaningful substantive guidance.”

Allen Morgan Jr., who is a Morgan Keegan cofounder, was CEO and Chairman until 2003.The seven other board members facing SEC charges include Kenneth Alderman, Mary S. Stone, W. Randall Pittman, Albert C. Johnson, James Stillman R. McFadden, Jack R. Blair, and Archie W. Willis III.

Already, Morgan Keegan is contending with over 1,000 arbitration lawsuits involving its bond funds that had invested in high risk MBS but were marketed as safe. When the subprime market collapsed, the funds lost up to 80% of their value.

Recently, Morgan Keegan and over 10,000 investors in a closed-end fund reached a $62 class million settlement. Lion Fund LP, the lead plaintiff and a Texas hedge fund, claimed that it had made a $2.1 million investment.

Morgan Keegan is owned by Raymond James (RJF), which bought the firm from Regions Financial Corporation. Other securities lawsuits still pending against it also involve conventional and open-ended funds.

Unfortunately, too many people and entities sustained huge losses because the risks of a number of types of securities leading up to the global crisis and the housing bubble’s implosion were downplayed by financial firms and their representatives. At Shepherd Smith Edwards and Kantars, our subprime mortgage-backed securities lawyers represent investors throughout the US. Contact our securities law firm today.

SEC Charges Eight Mutual Fund Directors for Failure to Properly Oversee Asset Valuation, SEC, December 10, 2012

SEC Order (PDF)

More Blog Posts:
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

Morgan Keegan & Company Ordered by FINRA to Pay $555,400 in Texas Securities Case Involving Morgan Keegan Proprietary Funds, Stockbroker fraud Blog, September 6, 2011

Morgan Keegan Ordered by FINRA to Pay RMK Fund Investors $881,000, Stockbroker Fraud Blog, April 24, 2011

CFTC Securities Headlines: Goldman Sachs Fined For Inadequate Broker Supervision in $118M Fraud, Firms Named in Precious Metal Scam, & Defendants to Pay $1.8M Over Off-Exchange Foreign Currency Scheme

Published on: December 14, 2012 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

Goldman Sachs Fined$1.5 Inadequate Supervision in $118M Fraud
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission says that Goldman Sachs (GS) must pay $1.5M because it did not properly supervise trader Matthew Marshall Taylor, who allegedly got around internal systems to manually make fabricated trades that went straight to the financial firms’ records and books and not the exchange. Taylor is accused of defrauding the bank, which lost about $118.4M.

The agency says that Goldman failed to make sure that its risk management, supervision, and compliance programs were in alignment with its duties to diligently oversee its business as a registrant of the Commission. However, CFTC commissioner Bart Chilton has criticized the $1.5M fine, describing it as a wrist slap.

CFTC Names Firms and Individuals in Precious Metal Scam The Commission has filed a civil injunctive enforcement action against a number of firms, including Hunter Wise Credit, LLC, Lloyds Commodities Credit Company, Hard Asset Lending Group, Blackstone Metals Group, LLC, CD Hopkins Financial, Newbridge Alliance Inc., Harold Edward Martin Jr., United States Capital Trust, LLC, as well as related entities, and Fred Jager, Frank Gaudino, James Burbage, Chadewick Hopkins, Baris Keser, David A. Moore, and John King. They are accused of fraudulently marketing off-exchange commodity contracts that were illegal. Also, Hunter Wise Commodities, which allegedly orchestrated the fraud, is accused of having gotten least $46M in client funds since July of last year.

The defendants allegedly claimed that they were selling physical metals to retail clients in retail commodity transactions and that they would arrange loans for the balance of the purchase price. Customers were supposed to make down payments at 25% of the complete buying price for certain quantities of metal, which were to be placed in a safe depository. The CFTC contends, however, says that not only were certain statements found in the investment contract untrue, but also the transactions were merely paper transactions with no actual metals involved.

Defendants to Pay $1.8M in Off-Exchange Foreign Currency Scheme
Following a CFTC anti-fraud enforcement action, a permanent injunction order and default judgment has been issued against Forex Capital Trading Partners, Inc., Forex Capital Trading Group Inc., and Highland Stone Capital Management, LLC requiring that they pay a penalty of over $1.3M and disgorge $450,764 to benefit clients who were defrauded. The Commission says that the three firms made fraudulent solicitations to 106 clients that invested over $2.8M in forex trading.

These solicitations were allegedly made with false claims that they were engaging in this type of trading had been profitable for several years, including a falsely reported 51.94% customer gain in 2010, which was a year when the investors actually lost over 1.2M. In fact, says the Commission, customers actually lost over 93% of total invested principal via the defendants’ customer trading.

CFTC Press Room

More Blog Posts:
CFTC Commissioner Proposes Plan to Give Futures Customers SIPC-Like Protections, Stockbroker Fraud Blog, August 14, 2012

CFTC Files Texas Securities Fraud Against TC Credit Services and its Houston Owner Over $1.4M Commodity Pool Scam, Stockbroker Fraud Blog, July 17, 2012
SEC and CFTC Say They Found Out About JPMorgan’s $2B Trading Loss Through Media, Stockbroker Fraud Blog, May 31, 2012 Continue Reading ›

Securities Headlines: Credit Suisse & J.P. Morgan to Pay $400M Over RMBS Misstatements, Fox Network’s FOIA Request for AIG Emails Granted, Expedited Discovery Approved in Real Estate ‘Flipper’ Case, & NY Brokerage Owner is Linked to Affinity Scam

Published on: December 13, 2012 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

Credit Suisse & J.P. Morgan to Pay $400M Over RMBS Misstatements

In SEC v. J.P. Morgan, the financial firm is accused of allegedly misstating information related to approximately 620 subprime mortgage loans’ delinquency status. The loans gave collateral for a $1.8M residential mortgage-backed securities offering that J.P. Morgan (JPM) underwrote six years ago and from which it was paid over $2.7 million in fees while investors lost at least $37 million. Now, the firm has agreed to pay nearly $297M to settle the allegations (without denying or admitting to them). The Commission is also accusing J.P. Morgan-owned Bear Stearns Cos. LLC of failing to disclose from 2005 to 2007 that it kept financial settlements from mortgage loan originators on problem loans that it sold into RMBS trusts.

Also settling RMBS Misstatement allegations with the regulator is Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC. In an administrative order, the SEC claims that between 2005 and 2010 the financial firm did not accurately disclose that it would keep cash from claims it settled against mortgage loan originators for issues involving loans that it had sold into RMBS trusts. Credit Suisse also allegedly misled investors about when it intended to buy back loans from trusts if those that borrowed did not make the initial payment. The firm has agreed to settle for $120M and is also not denying or admitting to the allegedly negligent conduct.

LIBOR Investigation Leads to Three Arrests

Published on: December 11, 2012 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

Anti-fraud and police in Britain have made three arrests related to the global interest rate rigging scandal involving the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR). The three men are Thomas Hayes, an ex-Citigroup Inc. (C) and UBS AG (UBSN.VX) trader, and James Gilmour and Terry Farr, who both worked at RP Martin, an interdealer broker. All of them are British nationals.

The Canadian Competition Bureau regulator claims that Hayes and others tried to manipulate yen Libor, which is the average interbank interest rates that banks are willing to lend in unsecured funds that are in Japanese yen denominations to each other. The regulator is also accusing Hayes of reaching out to traders at other banks in London and trying to persuade them to manipulate yen rates.

Regulators and prosecutors in Europe, Canada, the US, and Japan have been probing how traders have been able to rig interbank lending rates, including LIBOR, and whether banks may have changed submissions that are supposed to set benchmarks so they could make money off interest-rate derivatives-related bets or make lenders appear more financially healthy.