Articles Posted in News Releases

On February 1, 2013, FINRA proposed a rule change that would require brokerage firms to report trades within 10 seconds rather than 30 seconds. The new rule change would apply to all equity transactions, including companies not listed on an exchange, and order cancellations. FINRA has proposed this rule to help ensure that trade data accurately…

On February 7, 2013, FINRA CEO Richard Ketchum, in an interview with InvestmentNews, stated that FINRA has stopped its push to be the self-regulatory organization (“SRO”) for investment advisors. In 2012, FINRA advocated for legislation that would shift advisor oversight from the SEC to one or more SROs, but FINRA now takes the position that the…

On February 5, 2013, we posted a blog entitled U.S. Justice Department Sues S&P Over Deceptive Mortgage Securities Ratings, which detailed the U.S. Justice Dept. suit against S&P over its inaccurate ratings of mortgage securities. The lawsuit is said to be worth $5 billion. In the wake of this, S&P hired San Francisco white-collar defense attorneys John Keker…

On December 17, 2012, we posted a blog entitled Massachusetts sues LPL Financial Over Non-Traded REITs, which detailed the Massachusetts suit against LPL. The complaint alleged that LPL engaged in numerous violations of state blue sky laws, violations of prospectus requirements, and violations of LPL compliance practices in the sale of non-trade REITs. LPL now has…

On February 5, 2013, the Federal Trade Commission’s stance to crack down on tax relief companies took a major step forward. American Tax Relief LLC agreed to pay $15 million to settle claims that they operated a scheme that falsely advertised debt-relief services that they company never provided. The scheme took in more than $100 million by falsely claiming…

On February 4, 2013, the SEC filed suit against Richard K. Olive and Susan L. Olive in the Southern District of Florida in a charitable-gift-annuity scheme. The Olives allegedly drew $75 million from more than 400 investors in at least 30 states. In March of 2008 the Olives took over the inactive nonprofit, We The People, which…

On February 6, 2013, Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) became the 3rd international bank to reach a settlement in the ongoing investigation of the widespread manipulation of LIBOR. LIBOR is the rate that serves as a standard interest rate for loans between banks and impacts more than $360 trillion in lending to businesses and consumers. Federal…

A uniform fiduciary duty for broker-dealers and advisers has been a prevalent topic since 2010 when the Dodd-Frank Financial Reform Act was signed into law. Despite the SEC’s initial efforts to study whether a uniform fiduciary duty was appropriate, the subsequent process of implementing the uniform fiduciary duty stalled over the last couple of years…

On January 29, 2013, the SEC charged Firas Hamdan, a day trader in Sugar Land, TX, with “defrauding investors in his supposed high-frequency trading program and providing them falsified brokerage records that drastically overstated assets and hid his massive trading losses.” “The SEC alleges that Firas Hamdan particularly targeted fellow members of the Houston-area Lebanese and…

FINRA has proposed a new rule regarding its BrokerCheck system, which gives investors access to information about a financial advisor’s business and disciplinary history. The new rule would “require its broker-dealer members to include a prominent description of, and link to, BrokerCheck…on their websites, social-media pages and any comparable Internet presence.” Under this new proposed rule,…