FINRA

Investors Continue to Bring Puerto Rico Bond Fraud Claims Against UBS For, Among Other Things, Encouraging Them to Use Non-Purpose Lines of Credit to Purchase Securities

Published on: August 18, 2017 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

Two years after the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) barred former UBS Financial Services of Puerto Rico (UBS-PR) broker Jose Ramirez, nicknamed the Whopper, our UBS Puerto Rico fraud attorneys are continuing to provide representation to investors who sustained losses because they took his and other UBS-PR brokers’ advice to borrow from credit lines in order to invest in even more securities. If you are one of these investors and you would like to explore your legal options, please contact Shepherd Smith Edwards and Kantas, LTD LLP today.

It was in 2015 that the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) brought charges against Ramirez accusing him of fraud in the offer and sale of $50 million of UBS-PR affiliated, non-exchange traded closed-end mutual funds. The former UBS broker allegedly enriched himself by advising certain customers to use non-purpose credit lines that a firm affiliate, UBS Bank USA, was offering so that they could buy even more shares.

These customers were not, in fact, allowed to use credit lines to buy the securities and Ramirez allegedly knew this. He is accused of getting around restrictions by telling customers to move money to a bank that had no affiliation with UBS and then re-depositing the funds to their UBS Puerto Rico brokerage account in order to buy additional closed-end mutual funds or Puerto Rico bonds. Such a scheme was a violation of numerous rules and regulations and, if misrepresented to the investors as the SEC has alleged, would have been a major legal violation.

FINRA Cases: Hallmark Investments is Expelled For Fraud and FSC Securities Must Pay $592K Over Exchange-Traded Fund Sales

Published on: August 15, 2017 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

Investment Firm and Its CEO Are Expelled and Barred for Inflating the Price of Shares Before Selling Them

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority has expelled Hallmark Investments and barred Steven G. Dash, who is the firm’s CEO, over a securities scam that involved selling stocks at inflated prices. According to the self-regulatory organization, Hallmark, Dash, and firm representative Stephen P. Zipkin used an outside broker-dealer and engaged in manipulative trading, as well as in trade confirmations that were misleading, to sell almost 40,000 shares of stock to 14 customers at prices that were fraudulently inflated. Zipkin has been suspended by FINRA for two years and he will have to pay over $18K in restitution.

Hallmark purportedly employed a trading scam to sell the Avalanche shares that they owned at $3/share. Meantime, the prices for Avalanche were selling at the public offering price of $2.05/share and Hallmark sold other Avalanche shares to other customers for as low as 80 cents/share. Also, the investment firm, Zipkin, and Dash failed to tell customers that Hallmark owned the shares they were buying or that it was marking up the transactions (or that the shares could be bought for less on the open market) even as it sold the shares to others at lower prices.

Securities News: Deutsche Bank, Citigroup, JPMorgan, and Interactive Brokers Are Fined for Market Access Violations & Halliburton Settles FCPA Charges for $29.2M

Published on: July 28, 2017 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

Four Firms Are Ordered to Pay $4.75M for Market Access Rule Violations

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, CBOE Holdings company Bats, the New York Stock Exchange, NASDAQ, and their affiliated Exchanges have fined four financial firms $4.75M collectively for violating the Securities Exchange Act of 1934’s Rule 15c3-5, which is also known as the Market Access Rule. The fines are: $2.5M for Deutsche Bank (DB), $800K for J.P. Morgan (JPM), $1M for Citigroup (C), and $450K for Interactive Brokers (IBKR).

The firms have given market access to quite a number clients that engage in millions of trades daily. However, according to FINRA, Bats, NASDAQ, and NYSE, when doing so, they purportedly did not comply with at least one of the Market Access Rule’s provisions when they did not put in place certain risk management controls and procedures so that orders that were “erroneous or duplicative,” or went beyond certain kinds of thresholds, could be detected or prevented. The firms are also accused of not having systems in place for properly supervising customer trading so that “potentially volatile and manipulative activity” could be avoided.

Securities Fraud: Massachusetts Hedge Fund Manager Sentenced to 30 Months for Bilking Investors, Northeast Securities Ordered to Pay Customer $1.8M, and Ex-State Street Executive Pleads Guilty in Scheme Involving Secret Commissions

Published on: July 12, 2017 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

After Pleading Guilty, Massachusetts Money Manager Must Repay Investors
Stephen Eubanks is sentenced to 30 months behind bars for bilking investors of $437K. He also must pay restitution in that amount to his more than 20 victims.

Eubanks presented himself as a hedge fund manager at Eubiquity Capital, which he founded. He raised over $700K from investors and claimed that he was running a hedge fund that had ties with UBS (UBS), TD Ameritrade (AMTD), Fidelity, and Goldman Sachs (GS).

While Eubanks invested some of the clients’ funds for them he also spent a healthy amount of their money on his own spending. Eubanks also is accused of on occasion operating his fund as if it were a Ponzi scam.

FINRA Fines Wells Fargo $3.25M Over OTC Options Trading Reporting

Published on: June 22, 2017 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority is ordering Wells Fargo Securities (WFC) to pay a $3.25M fine for inaccuracies and mistakes in its reporting for over-the-counter trades that took place between January 2008 and March 2017. The self-regulatory organization also has censured the firm.

According to FINRA, in 2008, Wells Fargo (WFC) reviewed its OTC options trading reporting procedures. It went on to set up systems for reporting these types of trades. However, the firm’s reporting system was never fully established.

Wells Fargo Securities did not actually start reporting OTC options trades until after the firm achieved self-clearing status in 2014. Even then, claims the SRO, Wells Fargo either did not report or was inaccurate when reporting quite a number of these trades.

FINRA Promises To Take Tougher Stance With Rogue Brokers

Published on: June 14, 2017 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

The Financial Industry Regulatory has barred Lawrence M. Thomas, an ex-Woodbury Financial Services Inc. broker who was under investigation for unauthorized product sales. Thomas was previously registered with Essex Securities.

Last year, Thomas was fined $5K and suspended for three months after he consented to findings that he told an assistant to forge three customers’ signatures on about 10 documents. FINRA had been looking into whether Thomas recommended to Woodbury clients that they purchase an unauthorized product. The self-regulatory organization barred him after he failed to testify in FINRA’s investigation into the claims.

In an unrelated FINRA case, the SRO has filed charges against Kim Dee Isaacson, an ex-Morgan Stanley (MS) broker, for allegedly misleading a client about the size of his account, engaging in unauthorized trading, and attempting to resolve these issues directly with the client instead of along with the firm. According to FINRA, Isaacson told the client that the account was valued at $3.1M even though that was false.

FINRA Claims That It Can’t Stop Firms From Hiring High-Risk Brokers

Published on: June 12, 2017 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

In interviews with Reuters, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority admitted that even though investors are harmed when broker-dealers hire brokers with checkered histories, there is not much that the regulator can do to stop this practice because it is not illegal. This is undoubtedly causing even more investors to suffer losses as some of these high-risk brokers continue to engage in more misconduct or other violations at their new places of work.

For example, reports the news agency, since 2007 broker Mike McMahon and brokerage firms where he has worked, including National Securities Corporation, have shelled out $1.35M to resolve 10 client cases in which he was purportedly involved. McMahon is currently contending with another four broker fraud cases that were brought by other ex-clients.

One of the reasons the complaints keep coming is because he has been able to move from one firm to another even with the cases that have already been brought against him. Unfortunately, McMahon is not the only one.

Financial Representative Misconduct: Rep. Who Didn’t Disclose $100M in EB-5 Investment Sales is Barred From Securities Industry, Ex-Stifel, Nicolaus Broker is Suspended & Fined For Variable Annuity Violations, and Former Advisor is In Trouble Over Alleged Breaches Involving Senior Investors Accounts

Published on: June 7, 2017 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

Former Stifel, Nicolaus Broker is Accused of Variable Annuity Violations
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority has suspended an ex-Stifel, Nicolaus (SF) broker for four months over variable annuity transactions that he purportedly inappropriately recommended to certain investors. At the time of the alleged variable annuity fraud, James Keith Cox worked with Sterne, Agee & Leach. Stifel Financial later acquired that firm.

According to the regulator, Cox recommended a number of VA transactions even though there was no reasonable grounds for thinking they were appropriate for the investors. In addition to the suspension, Cox will disgorge the $25,460 he was paid in commissions.

FINRA Bars California Man From Industry Over $100M in Undisclosed EB-5 Investment Sales
A FINRA hearing panels has barred a California-based registered representative for taking part in private securities transactions involving $100M in EB-5 Investments that he failed to disclose to his employer financial firm. Jim Seol sold the EB-5 investments through his business Western Regional Center Incorporated.

FINRA Files Complaint Against Ex-Broker Over Variable Annuity Sales to Elderly Customers

Published on: April 26, 2017 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority has put out a disciplinary complaint against Walter Marino. The former broker worked for Legend Equities Corp. in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida at the time he allegedly facilitated variable annuities sales that were unsuitable for two of his older clients. According to the regulator, Marino recommended exchanges of non-qualified VAs to the customers without having reasonable grounds to guide them toward these investments.

FINRA said that Marino earned about $60K in commissions. Meantime, the customers lost over $82K because of surrender charges they were forced to pay and they did not benefit financially. Not only that but because Marino didn’t apply the tax-free exchange provision of the Internal Revenue Code, the customers ended up with substantial tax liabilities.

Now, the regulator wants Marino to disgorge his ill-gotten gains and pay the customers full restitution for the variable annuity fraud.

Broker Fraud: FINRA Arbitration Panel Awards Investor $1M After Misleading Variable Annuities Sales Pitch, Broker-Dealer Owner Gets Prison Sentence in $100M Stock-Loan Scheme, & Fugitive Broker is Arrested After 20 Years On the Run

Published on: April 14, 2017 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

Investor Awarded Over $1M After Allegedly Misleading Sales Pitch by Wilbank Securities Broker

A Financial Industry Regulatory Authority panel has awarded investor Grace S. Huitt over $1 million in her broker fraud claim against Wilbanks Securities. According to Huitt, one of the firm’s brokers presented her with a sales pitch about the ING Landmark Variable Annuity that not only was misleading but also promised too much and then under-delivered. She alleged breach of contract, fraud, breach of fiduciary duty, and negligent supervision.

Huitt claims that when she bought the variable annuity in 2008, she was told that it came with a guaranteed 7% compound yearly return. Other investors who also had made investment puchases through Wilbanks Securities reportedly claimed similar problems with what they were promised.