Investment Advisers

JPMorgan Ordered to Pay Family Trust Over $1M Related To Purported Violations Involving Short Trading, Leveraged ETFs and Ex-Firm Adviser Must Pay $22M for Fraud

Published on: November 5, 2015 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

A Financial Industry Regulatory Authority panel has awarded The Elliot Family Trust DTD, Eugene Elliot, Genraza LLC, and Shawn Elliot Over $1M in their securities arbitration case against J.P. Morgan Securities (JPM).

The claimants are contending fraud, breach of fiduciary duty, misrepresentation and omissions, failure to control and supervise, and violations of federal and state securities laws related to the alleged short trading of US Treasury securities and the unsuitable purchase and allocation of securities, including leveraged exchange-traded funds and unspecified options. They had initially sought compensatory damages no lower than $1.75M, rescission of the purportedly unsuitable investments, punitive damages, legal fees, and other costs. Meantime, the financial firm sought to have their case dismissed.

Following the pleadings, the FINRA arbitration panel decided that the respondent is liable for and must pay claimants over $1.145M in compensatory damages, interest on that amount, and over $43,000 in other fees.
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SEC Issues Over $325K Whistleblower Award to Ex-Investment Firm Employee Who Provided Fraud Tip

Published on: November 4, 2015 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

The Securities and Exchange Commission is awarding over $325K to an ex-investment firm employee who notified the regulator about misconduct that had been going on at his former employer. The information he provided allowed the SEC’s enforcement staff to investigate and discover the extent of the fraud.

In addition to providing specific details about the misconduct, the whistleblower identified who was involved in the fraud. However, said the Commission, if the whistleblower had come forward with the information sooner rather than waiting until after departing the investment firm, the award for exposing the fraud may have been greater.

In a statement, SEC Enforcement Division Director Andrew Ceresney spoke about how it is important for corporate insiders who are aware that there have been securities law violations to report what they know right away so that the misconduct can be stopped and investors are protected from any or further harm. He noted that the Dodd-Frank Act provides whistleblowers with substantial protections and incentives for tipping the agency about suspected wrongdoing.

SEC Probes Advisers With Access to Client Retirement Accounts, Approves Crowdfunding Rules Connecting Investors with Small Businesses

Published on: October 31, 2015 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

According to InvestmentNews, the Securities and Exchange Commission is looking at instances in which advisers have access to their clients’ financial accounts that they don’t manage. The SEC wants to make sure that these advisors are unable to take distributions from these accounts if they don’t have custody over them.

The SEC has been taking a closer look at custody since the Bernard Madoff Ponzi scam that bilked investors billions of dollars. Madoff was in control of most of his clients’ money.

In 2013, the regulator, seeking to stave off the next big investor scheme, noted that red flags were raised for 140 firms that were examined in 2012 because of they way they had access to or held the assets of clients. “Significant deficiencies” were found.
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Massachusetts Regulator Says Fidelity Let Unregistered Advisers Trade on Its Broker-Dealer Platform

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

Commonwealth William Galvin has filed an administrative complaint against Fidelity Brokerage Services. The firm is accused of letting at least 13 unregistered investment advisers trade on its broker-dealer platform, which caused Fidelity and the advisers to earn fees.

This practice, which involved unregistered advisers having their clients turn in trade authorizations to the brokerage firm so that they could access the accounts, purportedly took place for more than ten years beginning in 2005. For example, the state regulator contends that over twenty Fidelity customers paid one unregistered investment adviser $732,000 in fees over ten years in which he made over 12,000 trades in his account and nearly 29,000 trades in client accounts.

Galvin believes that Fidelity knew that this person was acting as an unregistered adviser, even at one point pressing him to register. However, claims the regulator, despite remaining unregistered, the trader was rewarded because of referrals he made to the broker-dealer. Seven Fidelity customers paid him $732,000 as compensation for his services.
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Florida Investment Adviser is Charged With Securities Fraud

Published on: October 5, 2015 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

The Securities and Exchange Commission is charging investment adviser Arthur F. Jacob and his Innovative Business Solutions LLC with fraud. The regulator claims that the two of them deceived clients from 2009 into 2014 and violated the federal securities laws’ antifraud provisions along with an SEC antifraud rule.

In its order instituting administrative proceedings regarding the purported investment adviser fraud, the SEC Enforcement Division contended that IBS and Jacob misrepresented the profitability and risks of investments he had bought for clients. Rather than disclosing the risks involved in certain exchange-traded funds, Jacob purportedly told clients that his investment approach was safe, presented no or little risk, and would garner predictable earnings. He also is accused of making misstatements to clients regarding their investments’ profitability.

Jacob and his Florida-based firm are not registered as an investment adviser with the regulator or any state. He is accused of telling clients that registration was not mandatory and of hiding his disciplinary history. For example, Jacob was disbarred from being an attorney because he misappropriated client moneys and engaged in other misconduct, including make false statements while under oath and to the Bar Counsel, submitting false tax returns for a client, charging unreasonable fees, and violating a court order.
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SEC Accuses Investment Adviser of Fraud Involving Over $40M In Illiquid Securities

Published on: September 29, 2015 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

The Securities and Exchange Commission is pursuing securities fraud charges against Family Endowment Partners LP and owner Lee Dana Weiss. The regulator claims that the registered investment adviser persuaded clients to invest over $40M in illiquid securities without disclosing that Weiss possessed an ownership stake in the entities that issued the securities. The regulator said that these entities made payments to Weiss.

According to the SEC, between ’10, and ‘12 FEP and Weiss caused two hedge funds and recommended that 11 clients invest over $40M in securities that were issued by a French company. The firm and Weiss did not purportedly disclose that there were conflicts of interest, including that he had a financial stake in the company or that he and entities under his control received over $600,000 payments from the company after the investments were made.

In ‘11, Weiss allegedly recommended that one client invest $2.55 million in subsidiaries of the French company despite knowing that the funds would go toward paying other clients’ delinquent interest. Also that year, he and his firm suggested that clients put $5 million in a consumer loan portfolio. The transaction was set up so that part of the proceeds of over $300,000 would go to a third-party manager, which was actually an inactive real estate company controlled by Weiss’s friend. The friend would then move the payments to Weiss and others.

Another RIA/Financial Radio Show Host Charged with Securities Fraud

Published on: September 10, 2015 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

The Securities and Exchange Commission is charging Bennett Group Financial Services founder and host of the radio show “Financial Myth Busting” with allegedly inflating her investment adviser firm’s assets under management, as well as its investment returns, to try to gain more clients.

Dawn J. Bennett is accused of claiming that the Washington-based firm had over $2 billion in assets even though it never oversaw more than $407 million. She made the inflated claim multiple times on her radio show. She also purportedly said that the Bennett Group’s investment returns were among the top 1% globally. The SEC said that these bragged about returns came from a model portfolio and did not represent any real customer returns.

At one point Bennett was number five on Barron’s “Top 100 Women Financial Advisors” list and number two on the DC “2011 Top Advisors” because of her alleged misstatements. She touted these rankings to potential customers.

In the regulator’s complaint, the Commission said that from at least 2009 to early 2011 Bennett and her investment adviser firm made material misstatements and omissions to try to bring in more clients. They also allegedly made other misstatements to attempt to conceal their fraud.
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SEC Orders Investment Advisory Firm to pay $21M For Allegedly Retaining Clients’ CDO Fees

Published on: September 3, 2015 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

Taberna Capital Management has consented to pay $21 million to resolve Securities and Exchange Commission charges alleging that it fraudulently kept fees that belonged to collateralized debt obligation clients. According to the regulator, the investment advisor retained “exchange fees” related to restructuring transactions, which was not allowed under the CDOs governing documents. The retention of the fees was purportedly not disclosed to investors.

The SEC maintains that these fees belonged to the CDOs and became a conflict interest that was not revealed. According to the agency’s order instituting administrative proceedings, for three years, from ’09 to ’12, the Pennsylvania-based investment advisory firm sought and kept millions of dollars in exchange fees paid by issuers of the securities that the CDOs held when Taberna recommended exchange transactions to clients. The SEC said that those fees actually belonged to the CDOs and that the firm made its misconduct difficult to identify by improperly labeling the fees as third party costs in documents even though these costs were only a small portion of the total exchange fees.

Also, said the SEC, Taberna did not mention these fees in quarterly reports to investors nor did it identify them in Forms ADV even though they should have been noted. The regulator said the retention of the fees set up a conflict of interest between the firm and investors and CDO clients, even at times giving Taberna incentive to steer issuers toward a particular exchange regardless of what restructuring might benefit it the most.

Massachusetts Regulator Probes Alternative Mutual Funds Sold by JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, BlackRock, and Other Financial Advisers

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

William Galvin, the Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth, is investigating the sale of 25 alternative mutual funds, including those created by Wells Fargo (WFC), JPMorgan (JPM), Eaton Vance (EV), and BlackRock (BLK). The state’s securities division sent subpoenas to registered investment advisers that deal with the funds. It noted, however, that receiving a subpoena is “not an indication of wrongdoing at this time.”

A full list of the funds under investigation can be found here. Galvin’s office wants to see documents related to the recommendations the firms made make to retail investors. The Massachusetts regulator’s spokesperson, Brian McNiff, said that the funds were selected because of their size, investment strategies, and sales volumes.

Alternative funds, also called liquid alts, are often marketed as tools that involve hedge-fund-style investment strategies to mitigate risks found in bonds, stocks, and other traditional investments. Alternative funds are not like typical mutual funds. Liquid alts usually hold more investments that are non-traditional. They typically employ trading strategies that are more complex.

Alt funds may invest in global real estate, leveraged loans, commodities, unlisted securities, and start-up companies. Strategies used may include short selling, hedging and leveraging via derivatives, opportunistic tactics that change with market conditions, or even single strategy tactics. There are risks involved.
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Boston Investment Adviser Accused of Losing Over $12M of Investor Funds is Charged with Securities Fraud

Published on: June 19, 2015 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

According to the Securities and Exchange Commission, Interinvest Corp., a Massachusetts investment adviser, bilked investors of over $12 million, perhaps up to $17 million, when its founder invested their money in Canadian penny stock companies in which he had undisclosed interests. Hans Peter Black, who is a resident of Canada, calls the charges against him “outrageous.”

The SEC claims that Interinvest and Black funneled over $17 million of client funds to four penny stock companies on whose boards he sits. Another entity that he controls received about $1.7 million in Canadian dollars. Black’s relationships to all of these entities were purportedly never disclosed to clients or stated in the firm’s Form ADV. This is the form that investment advisers use to register with the SEC and state securities regulators.

In February, the regulator sent a subpoena to Interinvest requesting documentation of its bank accounts, compliance policies, and trades. The SEC said that Black did not comply with its request. Black also is accused of misrepresenting the nature of the penny stock company’s investments, disregarding client instructions, and purposely deviating from the conservative investment strategy his firm promoted.