Blog
December 21, 2017
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) announced today that it has fined Raymond James Financial Services, Inc. $2 million for failing to maintain reasonably designed supervisory systems and procedures for reviewing email communications. In addition, Raymond James has agreed to conduct a risk-based retrospective review to detect potential violations evidenced in past emails. FINRA found […]
The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced charges and an asset freeze against a group of unregistered funds and their owner who allegedly bilked thousands of retail investors, many of them seniors, in a $1.2 billion Ponzi scheme. SEC investigators filed this action to prevent further dissipation of investor assets after obtaining court orders in September and November in subpoena enforcement actions that forced the unregistered companies to open […]
December 20, 2017
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) announced that it has fined Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated $1.4 million for failing to establish a reasonable supervisory system and procedures to identify and evaluate extended settlement transactions, and for related rule violations. Extended settlement transactions have a longer time between trade and settlement than routine securities […]
December 15, 2017
The firm is investigating Mark Heiden, a Wedbush Securities broker. Heiden is accused of using sales practices that were related to the overconcentration of energy related stocks investments in customer accounts. These investments included Energy XXI Bermuda Ltd.(EXXI): Energy XXI was an independent oil and natural gas development and production company whose growth strategy emphasized […]
November 20, 2017
An AWC was issued in which the firm was censured and required to provide FINRA with a remediation plan to remediate eligible customers who qualified for, but did not receive, an applicable mutual fund sales-charge waiver. As part of this settlement, the firm agreed to pay restitution to eligible customers, which is estimated to total […]
