The Securities and Exchange Commission filed fraud charges against a Portland, Oregon-based investment adviser who perpetrated a long-running Ponzi scheme that raised over $37 million from more than 100 investors in the Pacific Northwest and across the country. The SEC alleges that Yusaf Jawed used false marketing materials that boasted double-digit returns to lure people [...]
The Securities and Exchange Commission filed a civil injunctive action charging Revolutions Medical Corp. a medical device company based in Charleston, South Carolina, and the company’s CEO, Rondald L. Wheet with fraudulently issuing false and misleading press releases concerning the company’s flagship product, a retractable, medical safety syringe. Between approximately August 2010 and July 2011, [...]
The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged a former member of the board of directors at a North Carolina-based insurance company with illegally tipping inside information about an impending merger. The SEC alleges that H. Thomas Davis, Jr., who has a home in Wilmington N.C., breached his fiduciary duty to Mercer Insurance Group and its [...]
A court order has frozen the assets of a stockbroker who used nonpublic information from a customer and engaged in insider trading ahead of Burger King’s announcement that it was being acquired by a New York private equity firm. The US Securities and Exchange Commission alleges that Waldyr Da Silva Prado Neto, a citizen of [...]
The CC has provisionally found that the proposed acquisition by Akzo Nobel N.V. (AkzoNobel) of Metlac Holding S.r.l. (Metlac Holding) would result in a substantial lessening of competition (SLC) in the supply of metal packaging coatings in the UK. AkzoNobel has an existing stake of 49 per cent in Metlac Holding through its subsidiary Akzo [...]
The Securities and Exchange Commission charged a private fund manager and his Atlanta-based investment advisory firm for defrauding investors in a purported “fund-of-funds” and then trying to hide trading losses by creating new private funds to make money to pay back the original fund investors in Ponzi-like fashion. The SEC is seeking an emergency court [...]
With ‘auto-enrolment’ just a fortnight away, KPMG warns of ‘panic-buying’ as businesses scramble to hit the phased deadlines Forward thinking organisations are revamping their employee benefits arrangements at the same time as complying with compulsory pension provision ‘Auto-enrolment’ comes in from October 1st 2012. Under these new rules, the UK’s largest employers must take responsibility [...]
In light of the significant issues raised by investigations into attempted manipulation of benchmarks and related enforcement actions, in particular the recent incidents involving LIBOR, EURIBOR and TIBOR, the International Organization of Securities Commissions has constituted a Board Level Task Force on Financial Market Benchmarks to identify relevant benchmark-related policy issues and develop global policy [...]
The Securities and Exchange Commission has filed suit in California, charging former CEO and chairman of Mamtek U.S., Bruce Cole, with fraud related to the offer and sale of municipal bonds. The SEC’s complaint alleges that Cole executed a scheme to defraud investors and made material misrepresentations and omissions in connection with the July 2010 [...]
Judge Christine M. Arguello, U.S. District Court Judge for the District of Colorado, entered final judgments against Troy B. Wragg, Amanda E. Knorr, Speed of Wealth, LLC, Wayde M. McKelvy, and Donna M. McKelvy ordering disgorgement, prejudgment interest, and civil penalties totaling more than $135 million. The court ordered Wragg and Knorr to pay $37,031,035.36 [...]
The former director of Port Washington, N.Y.-based consumer electronics retailer Systemax Inc. is facing suit filed by the US Securities and Exchange Commission for fraudulently reaping hundreds of thousands of dollars in undisclosed compensation over a five-year period. The SEC alleges that Gilbert Fiorentino, who in addition to serving on the board was the former [...]
The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged the co-founder of a Chicago-based investment firm with misleading investors in two private equity offerings, and charged the other co-founder with supervisory failures related to the offerings. Advanced Equities Inc. — a broker-dealer and investment advisory firm – and co-founders Dwight O. Badger and Keith G. Daubenspeck were [...]
The Securities and Exchange Commission has filed over the weekend first-of-its-kind charges against the New York Stock Exchange for compliance failures that gave certain customers an improper head start on trading information. SEC Regulation NMS (National Market System) prohibits the practice of improperly sending market data to proprietary customers before sending that data to be [...]
The Securities and Exchange Commission announced that Joseph M. Braas, of Lititz, Pennsylvania, and Michael J. Schlager, of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, were sentenced in a criminal action for orchestrating a sophisticated financial fraud that lasted over five years. Braas and Schlager were two senior officers at Equipment Finance, LLC, formerly a commercial lender to the soft [...]
The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged a broker and his company based in Danbury, Conn., with stealing at least $600,000 from customers who he persuaded to withdraw money from their brokerage accounts he managed at other firms and instead invest with him directly. The SEC alleges that Stephen B. Blankenship lured about a dozen [...]
The OFT has filed charges against three individuals in connection with an investigation into suspected fraud in property sales. Thomas Francis Kelly, Samantha Jayne Kelly and Andrew Stephen Butts will appear at Sandwell Magistrates’ Court on 1 October 2012 in relation to a number of alleged offences under the Fraud Act 2006. The proceedings are [...]
The Financial Services Authority (FSA) has fined Peter Cummings £500,000 and banned him from holding any senior position in a UK bank, building society, investment or insurance firm. This is the highest fine imposed by the FSA on a senior executive for management failings. The Financial Services Authority (FSA) has fined Peter Cummings £500,000 and [...]
The Financial Services Authority (FSA) has fined BlackRock Investment Management (UK) Limited (BIM) £9,533,100 for failing to protect client money adequately by not putting trust letters in place for certain money market deposits, and for failing to take reasonable care to organise and control its affairs responsibly in relation to the identification and protection of [...]
The Securities and Exchange Commission filed an enforcement action in federal court in Boston charging Massachusetts-based Bio Defense Corporation and others for their roles in a fraudulent offering of unregistered Bio Defense securities. The defendants are charged with defrauding investors through various misrepresentations and schemes while raising at least $26 million in investor funds. In [...]
The OFT has published new guidance on how it will set penalties for breaches of competition law. The guidance will allow the OFT to continue to set substantial penalties to deter anti-competitive activity while ensuring that penalties are proportionate in the specific circumstances of individual cases. As required by law, the guidance has been approved [...]
