The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission can do a better job of overseeing the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, a government report found. While the SEC routinely inspects many regulatory programs run by Wall Street’s industry-funded regulator FINRA, it doesn’t review whether FINRA’s rules for the securities industry are effective, according to a Government Accountability Office […]
On May 31, 2012, the Securities and Exchange Commission amended its complaint against New York investment adviser, Brian Raymond Callahan, and Callahan’s investment advisory firms, Horizon Global Advisors Ltd., and Horizon Global Advisors, LLC, in the SEC’s emergency action filed on March 5, 2012 that halted an ongoing $90 million Ponzi scheme. The SEC’s amended […]
On May 10, 2012, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged a California-based real estate company and its owners with defrauding potential investors by boasting a false company track record to tout their purported real estate expertise while concealing the bankruptcy of their previous company. The SEC alleges that Michael J. Stewart, John J. Packard, and […]
The Securities and Exchange Commission (“Commission”) filed a civil injunctive action in Atlanta, Georgia on May 8, 2102, alleging that Gerald D. Kegley (“Kegley”) and the company he operates, Prism Financial Services, LLC (“Prism”), participated in a fraudulent “Prime Bank” scheme that violated the antifraud and securities and broker dealer registration provisions of the federal […]
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, or Finra, has ordered Citigroup Inc. (C), Morgan Stanley (MS), UBS AG (UBS) and Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC) to pay a combined $9.1 million for allegedly improper sales of leveraged and inverse exchange-traded funds. Wall Street’s self-regulator fined the companies a total of more than $7.3 million and also […]