After the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, or FINRA, found that Raymond James Financial Services Inc. had charged excessive commissions in about 13,500 customer accounts due to a failure to supervise, the firm agreed to pay more than $750,000 plus interest to the customers, as well as a $200,000 fine.

Raymond James also agreed to be censured in a letter of acceptance waiver and consent, or AWC, signed by the firm on September 9. Per the AWC, t...

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Retail investors lucky enough to have never had trouble with stockbrokers, or the broker-dealer firms who employ them, may not be aware that the standard of conduct for these investment professionals is below that of a fiduciary.

A fiduciary is obligated to act in the best interest of the person or entity to which the fiduciary duty is owed. This includes full disclosure of possible conflicts of interest.

Thanks to the Advisers Act of 1940, investment advisors have long had to adhere to the fiduciary duties of loyalty and care, but stockbrokers and broker-dealers ha...

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Edward P. May was sentenced to 16 years in federal prison on Oct. 4 for perpetrating the largest Ponzi scheme in the history of the Eastern District of Michigan, according to a statement released by U.S. Attorney Barbara L. McQuade.

The $350 million scheme eventually cost investors more than $49 million, the statement said. May was sentenced by Judge Arthur J. Tarnow of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan.

May pleaded guilty in April to 59 counts of mail fraud stemmi...

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Stockbrokers who go rogue and start to sell risky products promising high returns without the knowledge or approval of their broker-dealer employers are engaging in a practice known as “selling away,” that is a top concern for state securities regulators.

Selling away is a common infraction, according to The North American Securities Administrators Association, or NASAA. In its 2011 survey of state securities enforcement officials, NASAA ranked selling away eighth among the top 10 violations of the securities industry that do not ...

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RBC Capital Markets LLC of New York has agreed to pay $30.4 million to settle charges that it sold unsuitable, high-risk investments to five eastern Wisconsin school districts, as well as charges that it inadequately disclosed the risks.

The misconduct charges were brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, after RBC marketed and sold $200 million in credit-linked notes to trusts created by the districts.

The notes were tied to the performance of synthetic collateralized debt obligations, or CDOs, according to the SEC...

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