Articles Posted in News Releases

On April 8, 2013, the Senate confirmed Mary Jo White as chairman of the SEC by voice vote. According to SEC spokesman John Nester, Ms. White could start in her new job as early as Tuesday, pending the completion of Senate and White House paperwork, but it’s not clear when she’ll make her first public appearance as…

Last week, U.S. District Judge Kiyo Matsumoto dismissed a class action lawsuit against David Lerner. According to a spokesman for Lerner, the federal court dismissed all of the class action’s federal securities law claims as well as the state law claims against David Lerner Associates, with prejudice. The dismissed suit alleged that Lerner’s sale of more…

On April 5, 2013, former FINRA employee Joseph Sciddurlo filed a whistle-blower suit in federal court, claiming he was fired after detecting a flaw in FINRA’s risk-rating system that allowed large broker-dealers to be over-leveraged. Sciddurlo claims in the suit that he worked as a principal examiner for FINRA and in 2010 he discovered that FINRA allowed…

On April 17, 2013, NASAA members visited Washington D.C. to raise support among lawmakers to help their effort to restrict, or end, the use of mandatory arbitration clauses in client contracts with brokers. SEC Commissioner Luis Aguilar agrees with them. In a speech at the NASAA conference on April 16, 2013, Aguilar called for an end to…

On April 3, 2013, Matthew Taylor, a former Goldman trader, surrendered to the FBI in New York after he was accused by securities regulators of concealing an $8.3 billion futures position. Last year, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) filed a civil lawsuit against Mr. Taylor alleging that he defrauded his then-employer, Goldman Sachs, by intentionally hiding…

On July 3, 2012, Netflix CEO, Reed Hastings, possibly violated Reg FD when Hastings posted corporate information on his personal Facebook. However, on April 2, 2013, the SEC decided not to initiate an enforcement action or allege wrongdoing by Hastings or Netflix. The SEC recognized that there has been market uncertainty about the application of Regulation…

Paul Burks, the mastermind behind ZeekRewards $600 million ponzi scheme is still negatively affecting many investors nationwide. Paul Burks attracted approximately 1 million investors into his ponzi scheme, which was headquartered in Lexington, North Carolina. The SEC closed ZeekRewards operations on August 17, 2012. They alleged that Burks was selling securities without a license and…

With his recent arrest of SAC Capital Advisors’ Michael Steinberg, which with detailed in a recent blog, Preet Bharara, the current U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, has been dubbed the new sheriff of Wall Street. Mr. Bharara is a soft-spoken native of India who grew up in the suburbs of New Jersey.…

For the past 13 years Britain’s main financial regulator has been the Financial Services Authority. The agency’s tenure, however, is ending and Britain’s largest overhaul of its financial regulation is occurring as we speak. Starting in April 2013 the Financial Conduct Authority, a new consumer protect agency, will replace the Financial Services Authority. Furthermore, the Prudential Regulatory…

The SEC has agreed in principle with eight former directors of five Morgan Keegan mutual funds to settle a civil enforcement action brought in December 2012. In the December action, the SEC charged the directors with failing to exercise their responsibilities to ensure accurate valuations of the assets in mutual funds, which included holdings in…