The latest cycle of investment fraud cases, unlike the tech-wreck cases of 2000 and 2001, has hit mostly otherwise conservative investors seeking safety and income.

This is the latest fall out resulting from Wall Street’s manufacturing and sale of synthetic investment products, CDOs, structured products, proprietary closed end funds, and multi-billion dollar underwritings of the preferred securities of troubled financial institutions.

However, most investor...
Read Full Article

WASHINGTON — The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) announced today that it has imposed a monetary sanction of $1.5 million against Citigroup Global Markets Inc. for supervisory violations relating to its handling of trust funds belonging to cemeteries in Michigan and Tennessee. The sanction represents a $750,000 fine and disgorgement of $750,000 in commissions, which is being returned to the cemetery trusts as partial restitution.

"Firms have a duty to protect customer funds by taking prompt and meaningful action when they encounter i...
Read Full Article

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) announced today that it has ordered Los Angeles-based Westpark Capital, Inc. to pay a total of $400,000 for supervisory system failures, and has suspended two officers for failing to supervise brokers in two now-closed Long Island branches who churned customer accounts and engaged in unauthorized and unsuitable trading in multiple accounts. The monetary sanction includes a $100,000 fine and $300,000 in restitution to affected customers.

 FINRA suspended Westpark's former Chief Compliance Officer, William A. Morgan, f...
Read Full Article

 Judges, and not arbitrators, should decide questions relating to the enforceability of a class action waiver in an arbitration clause because such questions present issues of "arbitrability" that are properly decided by courts, an en banc panel of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled.

"An unconscionability challenge to the provisions of an arbitration agreement is a question of arbitrability that is presumptively for the court, not the arbitrator<...
Read Full Article

Washington, DC — The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) announced today that it has fined five broker-dealers a total of $385,000 for the illegal sale of more than 8 billion shares of penny stock on behalf of their customers. Most of thos...
Read Full Article