SEC Enforcement

SEC Roundup: The Regulator Charges Ex-Deloitte Chief Risk Officer with Auditor Rule Violations, Ex-Clearing Firm Officials With Regulation SHO Violations, & Rafferty Capital Markets with Illegal Trade Facilitation

Published on: May 23, 2014 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

Ex-Deloitte LLP Chief Risk Officer Charged With Auditor Independence Rule Violations

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is charging certified public accountant James T. Adams, an ex-chief risk officer, with violating auditor independence rules. The rules are there to make sure audit firms stay objective about their clients.

According to the SEC, while Adams was the advisory partner on Deloitte & Touche’s audit of a casino gaming corporation, he repeatedly accepted tens of thousands of dollars in casino markers. He then established a credit line with a casino operated by the gaming corporation client and used the markers to draw on that credit line.

SEC Files Fraud Charges Against American Pension Services and Its Founder Over $22M Investor Losses

Published on: April 30, 2014 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

The Securities and Exchange Commission has filed charges against American Pension Services Inc., a third-party administrator of retirement plans based in Utah and its founder Curtis L. DeYoung. The regulator says that they caused clients to lose about $22 million in risky investments involving certain business ventures. American Pension Services is now under receivership.

The securities scam allegedly goes back at least to 2005. Customers with retirement accounts containing non-traditional assets usually not found via IRA custodians, such as traditional (401)K retirement plans, were targeted. The Commission says that APS and DeYoung solicited customers to set up self-directed IRA accounts with third party administrator. DeYoung purportedly said this was “genuine self-direction” for investors seeking other options besides stocks, mutual funds, and bonds.

These clients had to fill out IRS Form 5305-A, which say that a third-party administrator doesn’t have discretionary authority over assets and it is up to the depositor to direct the assets’ investments. Although clients’ funds were kept at a bank in two master trust accounts, the complaint claims that APS controlled the money and mixed clients’ money together.

NYSE Pays $4.5M to the SEC to Settle Allegations Over Compliance Failures, Exchange Rules Violations

Published on: April 30, 2014 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

The New York Stock Exchange and other entities have agreed to collectively pay $4.5 million to settle Securities and Exchange Commission allegations over regulatory and compliance violations. This includes the claim that there was a failure to abide by the duties of self-regulatory organizations to make sure their businesses follow federal securities laws and SEC-approved rules. Also facing charges are charged are NYSE Arca, NYSE Market, IntercontinentalExchange Inc. (ICE), which owns the NYSE, and Archipelago Securities, which is an affiliated routing broker.

As part of the agreement, the NYSE will get an independent consultant. All parties settled without denying or agreeing to the findings.

According to the regulator, the NYSE exchange took part in business practices that either violated exchange rules or engaged in certain actions that required such a rule where none existed. For example, the exchange used an error account that Archipelago maintained to trade out of certain securities positions even though there were no rules that allowed for the use of this type of account. Other violations alleged include those involving the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934 over numerous acts of purported misconduct, including:

SEC Charges Total Wealth Management With Securities Fraud, Receiving Undisclosed Kickbacks

Published on: April 18, 2014 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

The Securities and Exchange Commission has filed a financial fraud case against Total Wealth Management Inc., an investment advisory firm based in Southern California. The regulator is accusing the firm of getting undisclosed kickbacks over investments recommended to clients. It is also alleging breach of fiduciary duty.

According to the SEC’s complaint, Total Wealth placed about 75% of 481 client accounts into Altus Funds, which is a family of proprietary funds. The investment advisory firm has a revenue-sharing deal that allows them to get kickbacks. The regulator says this was a conflict of interest because customers did not know about the agreement.

The Wall Street Journal reports that according to the SEC, Altus invested 92% of all its investments-$32 million-in funds that had revenue sharing deals with Total Wealth. The agency says that clients likely wouldn’t have put their money with Total Wealth if they had known that the majority of the Altus funds were paying the firm.

SEC Files Securities Charges Against Massachusetts Company Over Pyramid Scam that Primarily Targeted Immigrants

Published on: April 17, 2014 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

The US Securities and Exchange Commission has filed fraud charges against TelexFree Inc. and TelexFree LLC over an alleged Pyramid scam that targeted immigrants-those from Brazil and the Dominican Republic, in particular. The agency sought and was able to obtain an asset freeze, securing millions of dollars.

Also facing charges are a number of TelexFree officers and promoters and several other entities as relief defendants. The Investors involved are located in Massachusetts and 20 other US states.

According to the SEC, the two entities made it appear as if they were operating a multilevel marketing company that sold phone service using VoIP technology when in fact this was a Pyramid scheme. The defendants sold securities as “memberships” along with the promise of 200% or greater yearly returns to people who promoted TelexFree via ad placements and participated in new member recruitment. $300 million was raised.

SEC Says At Least 200 Private-Equity Firms Imposed Bogus Fees

Published on: April 9, 2014 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

According to the US Securities and Exchange Commission, over half of the approximately private-equity firms that it examined have charged unjustified expenses and fees to investors without their knowledge. The regulator’s findings are from its review of the $3.5 trillion industry.

It was the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act that gave the SEC more oversight over money managers, which allowed the agency to scrutinize some firms for the very first time. By the end of 2012, examiners had discovered that certain advisers were wrongly collecting money from companies included in their portfolio, improperly calculating fees, and using assets from the funds to pay for their own expenses. Bloomberg reports that a source in the know about the regulator’s findings said that while some of the issues seem to stem from mistakes, others might have been intentional.

SEC to Look Even More Closely At Private Funds

SEC Fraud Charges Filed in $1.9M Microcap Stock Scalping Scam

Published on: March 20, 2014 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

The Securities and Exchange Commission has filed securities fraud charges against the promoter behind affiliated microcap stock promotion websites. The regulator us accusing John Babikian of using PennyStocksUniverse.com and AwesomePennyStocks.com to engage in “scalping” which is a type of securities fraud. The SEC has also obtained an emergency asset freeze.

According to the Commission, the websites, knowing collectively as “ABS,” sent out e-mails to about 700,000 people on February 23, 2012 and recommended that they invest in America West Resources Inc. (AWSRQ), which is a penny stock. However, the e-mails did not disclose that Babikian was the holder of over 1.4 million of the stock shares, which he had positioned and was going to sell right away via a Swiss bank.

Because of the emails, there was a huge increase in the share price of America West’s stock and trading value. Babikian used this to get rid of the stock during the last 90 minutes of the trading day and raked in over $1.9M.

Jefferies LLC Settles SEC Charges for $25 Million

Published on: March 12, 2014 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

Broker-dealer and investment bank Jefferies LLC (JEF) has consented to pay $25 million to settle Securities and Exchange Commission charges that it did not properly supervise traders at its mortgage-backed securities desk. These same staffers purportedly lied to investors about pricing.

The regulator contends that Jefferies did not give its supervisors what they needed to properly oversee trading activity on the MBS desk and that these managers neglected to find out what bond traders were telling customers about pricing information in terms of what the bank paid for certain securities. This inaccurate information was misleading to investors, who were not made aware of exactly how much the firm profited from in the trading.

While Jefferies’ policy makes supervisors look at electronic conversations of salespeople and traders so any misleading or false information given to customers would be detected, the SEC says that the policy was not effected in a manner that price misrepresentations were identified. The supervisory failures are said to have taken place between 2009 and 2011.

SEC Staff Sold Shares Before Enforcement Actions in Securities Cases Were Made Public, Reports Study

Published on: February 27, 2014 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

Bloomberg is reporting that according to a new study, US Securities and Exchange Commissioner employees who own stock in companies that the agency is investigating are more likely than other investors to sell their shares in the months prior to the regulator’s announcement of an enforcement action. Shivaram Rajgopal, an Emery University accounting professor, and one of the study’s co-authors, said that there appears to be a suspect pattern of behavior going on even though the findings are not proof of misconduct.

Rajgopal and co-author Roger M. White, a Georgia State University doctoral student, obtained records from the SEC through a request they made under the Freedom of Information Act. Unfortunately, because individuals weren’t named, it was impossible to figure out whether the agency employees who traded were in jobs that might have given them insider knowledge about a pending action, and whether the action could lower stock prices, or if money was lost or made in the transactions.

Beginning August 2010, SEC ethics rules have forbidden employees from selling or buying shares in companies that are under investigation. They also have to get permission before trading, cannot trade in any financial firm that the SEC directly regulates, and they generally must hold any stock that they buy for six months before selling.

SEC Charges Investment Banker in $950K Insider Trading Scam Involving Child Support Payments

Published on: February 21, 2014 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

The Securities and Exchange Commission has put out an emergency action against Frank “Perk” Hixon Jr., an investment banker based in New York. Hixon Jr. is charged with insider trading that garnered him $950,000 in illicit profits that he purportedly used in lieu of making child support payments to the mother of his son.

According to the regulator, Hixon Jr. regularly went into Destiny “Nicole” Robinson’s account and made trades using confidential information that he got from his job. Illegal trades or tips in three public companies’ securities were involved, including trading using nonpublic data about Titanium Metals Corporation before its merger announcement, trading prior to a number of big announcements by Westway Group, and trading in his firm Evercore Partners’ securities before record earnings were made public in early 2013. Hixon Jr. also allegedly made illegal trades in his dad’s brokerage account.

However, when asked by his employer about the suspicious trading in both accounts, Hixon Jr. denied that he knew either his father or Robinson. He even swore in a declaration that he didn’t recognize the name of the city where his father had been residing for over a quarter of a century. Hixon Jr. has since been fired.