Articles Posted in Investor Fraud

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On January 16th, a settlement was reached to create new fiduciary committees to handle a complex transition at the bankrupt Woodbridge firm, following a SEC lawsuit over a billion-dollar Ponzi scheme run by Woodbridge founder Robert Shapiro, who will now be totally excluded from the restructuring process.

Upon approval of the settlement, Judge Kevin Carey said, “As a condition for approval I require that that if any services beyond transition services are to be desired by the debtor, you need court approval with or without SEC consent.”

After Woodbridge filed for bankruptcy, Shapiro allegedly continued having access to company offices, and was paid a monthly $175,000 consulting fee. By designing a new team with no links to Shapiro to facilitate the transition, the settlement ensures decisions will now be made in the defrauded investors’ best interest.

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In line with its expressed intent to increase its oversight over the cryptocurrency market, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission has filed three related fraud suits in a single week.

The third lawsuit targets the creators of “My Big Coin,” who allegedly used $6 million dollars received from buyers to pay off early investors and shop for luxury items. The allegations caused the freezing of all assets belonging to the creators of the supposed next-big-cryptocurrency.

The Nevada-based company, My Big Coin Pay Inc.; was founded by Randall Crater. The suit, filed in January, also named one of its salesmen, Mark Gillespie. According to the allegations, between 2014 and mid-2017, the defendants defrauded 28 investors out of six million dollars.

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According to former Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Mary Jo White, the SEC insufficient examination of registered investment advisors is a “disaster waiting to happen.”

Without adequate oversight, misconduct at small advisory firms could be building up for years. While FINRA and state regulators vet half of all registered broker-dealers annually, the SEC only manages to examine 12% of RIAs every year.

Speaking at the Practicing Law Institute in New York, White expressed her concern about the SEC’s failing oversight of the independent space. “It’s a real problem that keeps me up at night,” she commented.

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At a recent Securities Enforcement Forum in Washington DC, Stephanie Avakian, co-director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement, discussed the agency’s future priorities.

Avakian emphasized that the mission of the Enforcement Division, to protect investors, will remain unchanged, but she announced a slight shift in focus areas and resource allocation.

The Division of Enforcement official referred to retail investors as the “most vulnerable market participants,” and confirmed that the SEC will continue to focus on:

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The North American Securities Administrators Association (NASAA) has just released its yearly Enforcement Report. Although NASAA is an international association of all state, provincial and territorial securities regulators in the United States, Canada, and Mexico, the annual report is focused on US jurisdictions.

According to data included in the document, there were more enforcement actions against registered members than against non-registered individuals in 2016.

2,017 (or 46%) of the 4,341 investigations conducted by state regulators in the securities industry resulted in enforcement actions. Resulting fines amounted to $682 million, while $231 million were returned to investors. The combined total between fines and restitutions, surpassing $900 million, constitutes a 5-year high.

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The SEC has accused two former Alexander Capital LP brokers, William Gennity and Rocco Roveccio of engaging in unlawful trading and deception that caused their customers to lose hundreds of thousands of dollars, while they earned a comparable amount in fees.

Gennity and Roveccio both worked at Alexander Capital from mid 2012 till October 2014.

They apparently have a long history of disciplinary action in the securities industry. In 2016, Gennity reached a settlement to resolve allegations of unauthorized trading and in 2014, he reached another settlement over churning and unsuitability. Roveccio has reached settlements over allegations of unauthorized trading and suitability in 2002, unauthorized trading in 2006, and a FINRA customer arbitration in 2013.

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FINRA announced it has just fined C.L. King & Associates $750,000. According to the Regulatory Authority´s decision, the broker-dealer has negligently made “material misrepresentations and omissions to issuers in connection with the firm’s redemptions of debt securities on behalf of a hedge fund customer.”

This was allegedly done in connection with the hedge fund customer´s scheme to profit from the death of terminally ill individuals.

A FINRA hearing panel also found that the Albany-based broker dealer and its Anti-Money Laundering Compliance Officer failed to “implement a reasonable AML program and failed to adequately respond to red flags related to the liquidation of billions of shares of penny stocks indicative of potentially suspicious activity by two customers.”

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Once in a while, regulators and courts take actions that have no precedent, but which may influence justice over time. That is the case of a recent ruling from a Florida federal judge, who ordered a defendant to disclose that he had “violated commodity laws” whenever he writes or speaks about commodity trading in the future.

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission announced the ruling in a statement, perhaps in the hope that it might serve to deter potential fraudsters.

The defendant, Anthony J. Klatch II, had been arrested several times since 2011, charged with running a kind of Ponzi scheme, and ordered to pay back $13 million in various civil proceedings. In 2012, for example he was convicted in connection with a $2.3 million investment scam.

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Ironridge Global Partners LLC has agreed to pay $4.4 million in disgorgement to settle claims that it incurred violations of the Exchange Act when its subsidiary Ironridge Global IV distributed billions of microcap shares without being a registered broker.

According to the SEC order, Ironridge violated Section 15(a) of the Exchange Act, which “prohibits a broker or dealer to effect transactions in any security without registering with the Commission,” and Section 20(b) of the Exchange Act, which “makes it unlawful for any person, directly or indirectly, to do any act or thing which it would be unlawful for such person to do under the Exchange Act or any rule or regulation thereunder through or by means of any other person.”

The San Francisco-based firm’s subsidiary, Ironridge Global IV, sold shares of 28 microcap issuers, typically driving down share prices while increasing the number of shares received, through a price protection formula which locked in discounts regardless of stock price shifts.

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Over the course of 2016, FINRA expelled 24 firms from membership and fined offenders for a total of $176 million. The largest fine amounted to $25 million, paid by MetLife Securities over negligent misrepresentations and omissions in connection with variable annuity replacements.

A total of $27,9 million from monetary sanctions corresponded to customer restitutions. In the MetLife case, this amounted to $5 million.

On average, FINRA fined 31 offenders per month. There were many serial offenders, with 46 firms fined more than once throughout the year and 11 firms fined more than four times.

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