Institutional Investors

Institutional Investment Fraud Lawyers

Published on: June 17, 2024 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

Research Foundation Awarded More Than $7.3M In Their FINRA Lawsuit Against Principal Securities. Our Institutional Investment Fraud Lawyers are Representing Nonprofits, Charitable Organizations, Endowment Funds, And Institutional investors

Churning, Unsuitability, and Supervisory Failures Alleged in Nonprofit’s Broker Fraud Claim

A Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) arbitration panel has awarded over $7.3 million to the Rosenau Family Research Foundation (formerly known as The Legacy of Angels Foundation) in their stockbroker fraud claim against Principal Securities. The 501 (c)(3) nonprofit, which helps promote awareness and education around Cystic Fibrosis and Krabbe disease, accused the brokerage firm of allegedly excessive trading in variable annuities, making unsuitable investment recommendations, supervisory failures, negligence, and other acts of broker misconduct.

Institutional Investment Attorneys

Published on: December 30, 2022 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

Is Your Broker Responsible for Your Institutional Investor Fraud Losses?

How Our Seasoned Institutional Investment Attorneys Can Help

Shepherd Smith Edwards and Kantas (investorlawyers.com) represent institutional investors against their broker-dealers in pursuing damages for losses sustained due to broker negligence or fraud. Determining whether you should sue your brokerage firm for misconduct is always challenging even if you are an experienced investor, which is why you should speak with our savvy institutional investment attorneys today.

Former Och-Ziff Capital Executive Admits To Lying

Published on: May 31, 2019 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

Michael L. Cohen, the ex-head of Och-Ziff Capital Management Group in Europe, has pleaded guilty to one criminal count of lying to authorities. The guilty plea comes a year after he was accused of defrauding a client, a biomedical research charity, of millions of dollars. Although prosecutors have not identified the charity, sources have told various media that it was Wellcome Trust, which backs research in health, science, and other fields.

Cohen, who was based in the UK at the time while working for the hedge fund management firm, is the one who brokered the sale of shares in an African mining company to the charity. The company belonged to one of his business associates.

Cohen made $4M from the sale of the shares. He allegedly failed to tell the charity that he himself owned shares in the mining company.

Morgan Stanley To Pay $150M Over Mortgage-Backed Securities

Published on: May 6, 2019 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

Morgan Stanley (MS) has agreed to a $150M settlement with the California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS) and the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) to resolve claims that it misled investors about the risks involved in mortgage-backed securities, which both pension funds purchased from 2003 to 2007. CalSTRS and CalPERS lost millions of dollars from investing in these MBSs prior to the 2008 financial crisis.

In a news release, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra accused Morgan Stanley of placing profits over the pension funds’ public employees and teachers when the firm didn’t fully disclose the MBSs’ risks. These complex investments package together thousands of mortgage loans, and not all of the loans share the same level of quality.

Mr. Becerra’s office, which conducted a probe into Morgan Stanley’s handling of MBS sales, found that the brokerage firm did not “accurately” portray many of the underlying mortgages’ “true” traits. Meanwhile, the broker-dealer allegedly overstated the quality of certain subprime loans, including those from New Century Financial, which eventually went bankrupt. Morgan Stanley is accused of knowing about these misrepresentations but doing nothing to remedy the matter.

SEC Charges Abraaj Investment Management With Defrauding Investors

Published on: April 19, 2019 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is accusing Abraaj Investment Management Ltd., a Dubai-based investment advisory firm, with misappropriating money from the Abraaj Growth Markets Health Fund. The regulator said that the fraud has resulted in losses for US investors, including charitable organizations that invested over $100M in the Fund. Also facing civil fraud charges is Abraaj founder Arif Navqi. In total, the investment adviser and Navqi are accused of misappropriating more than $230M from the fund between at least 9/2016 and 6/2018.

According to the regulator’s civil complaint, investors were told that their money would go into businesses related to healthcare in emerging markets. Instead, Abraaj Investment Management allegedly used the money to pay for cash shortfalls at the firm and at parent company Abraaj Holdings, Ltd., both of which Navqi controlled. Meantime, investors were allegedly sent financial statements and quarterly reports that were materially misleading or false.

Registered in the Cayman Islands, the Abraaj Growth Markets Health Fund’s investors had committed $850M. Additionally, the SEC stated that one of the fund’s investors was a US government entity that had committed an additional $150M debt investment.

Criminal Securities Fraud Cases Including Startup Company Charged in $48M Fraud

Published on: March 4, 2019 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

Jury Convicts Investment Manager for Defrauding Lenders and Clients

A federal jury has convicted Shawn Baldwin, a Chicago investment manager, on seven counts of wire fraud. Baldwin is accused of fraudulently obtaining over $10M from at least 15 investors and lenders between 2006 and 2017. They thought that their money would go into investment products. Instead, he spent their money on his own personal bills. Meantime, his victims were given fake account statements with false information about their funds’ value so he could hide the fraud.

Individual and corporate lenders were among those that gave Baldwin their money to invest. He is accused of “exaggerating” his successful track record and professional ties, as well as mispresenting and minimizing past disciplinary action brought against him, including the revocation of his certifications with FINRA and that in 2013, the State of Illinois permanently barred Baldwin from offering investment advice or selling securities.

Big Banks Are Accused of Rigging Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae Bonds

Published on: February 27, 2019 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

The City of Birmingham Retirement and Relief System and the Electrical Workers Pension System Local 103 have filed a proposed class action securities fraud lawsuit accusing a number of big banks of colluding with one another to rig the prices of Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp. (Freddie Mac) and Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) unsecured bonds. The defendants in the case include JP Morgan (JPM), Bank of America (BAC), Citigroup (C), Barclays Bank (BARC), Deutsche Bank (DB), Credit Suisse (CS), UBS (UBS), Merrill Lynch, BNP Paribas Securities Corp., FTN Financial Securities, Goldman Sachs (GS), and First Tennessee Bank.

According to Law360, the plaintiffs contend that the bank took advantage of the dark market nature of the “private, ‘over the counter’ (OTC) market” where these bonds are bought and sold to get investors to buy the Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae bonds at prices that were “artificially high.”

Fannie and Freddie are both government-backed mortgage-finance companies. They are typically known for converting mortgages into mortgage-backed securities. This investor fraud lawsuit, however, is focused on their unsecured bonds. The proposed class contends that investors purchased the bonds because they thought they were safe, liquid, low risk, and likely to make returns. Their complaint states that the plaintiffs and other investors had not expected the “overcharges and underpayments” that resulted because of the banks’ alleged collusion.

Investor Fraud Claims Include Kiddar Capital and Stanford Ponzi Scam

Published on: February 26, 2019 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

$20M Ponzi Scam Results in Guilty Plea for Kiddar Capital Founder

Todd Hitt, Kiddar Capital’s founder and a member of a prominent commercial real estate family in Virginia, has pleaded guilty to criminal fraud charges accusing him of operating a $20M Ponzi fraud that involved several schemes. According to prosecutors, Hitt solicited about $30M from investors and then proceeded to use most of the money to fund his lavish lifestyle while using newer investors’ funds to pay older investors. He also allegedly made “false statements and material omissions” to investors when he didn’t tell them that their money was comingled with unrelated projects and not just the real estate and venture capital investments for which their funds were supposedly designated.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia contends that because of Hitt’s “fraudulent conduct,” investors lost about $20M. He is facing up to 20 years behind bars and is expected to pay a fine of millions of dollars. He previously settled related civil fraud charges filed against him by the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

Philadelphia Sues Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America and Other Big Banks, Alleges Municipal Bond Rigging

Published on: February 21, 2019 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

The city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is suing Bank of America (BAC), Goldman Sachs (GS), Citigroup (C), Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC), Barclays Plc (BAR), JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM), and Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) for allegedly rigging rates for variable-rate demand obligations (VRDOs). Philadelphia had issued over $1.6B of these bonds.

VRDOs are tax-exempt municipal securities that can be redeemed by investors early because they are tendered to banks. The banks can then remarket the bonds to other investors while charging issuers a fee.

According to InvestmentNews, the city is looking to represent a number of hospitals, municipalities, and universities with its lawsuit. The complaint contends that the banks worked with each other to manipulate the VRDO rates in secret so they could make hundreds of millions of dollars in unearned fees. The alleged rigging occurred between 2/2008 and 6/2016. The collusion purportedly involved the banks agreeing not to compete against each other for re-marketing services.

Financial Firms: UBS Settles with Virginia’s Regulator over Broker’s Unsuitable Recommendations, FINRA Fines Texas Broker-Dealer $225K for Mutual Fund Sales Violations, and an Ex-Client Seeks $500K from Carson Wealth while Alleging Excessive Fees

Published on: February 19, 2019 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

Virginia Regulator Fines UBS Financial After Its Broker Makes Unsuitable Recommendations

To settle charges brought by Virginia’s State Corporate Commission accusing a UBS (UBS) broker of making unsuitable recommendations involving gold and precious metals securities to 18 clients, UBS Financial Services will pay $319K—$289K to the clients and $30K to the state.

Virginia’s regulator contends that unsuitable recommendations were made in 2013 and 2014 and caused UBS clients to hold an overconcentration of these securities, which were not even suitable for some of them. The state said that this violated its securities rules.