The White Law Group, LLC, a South Florida securities fraud, broker fraud, securities arbitration, investor protection and Chapter 7 bankruptcy law firm based in Boca Raton, Florida.

Posts tagged ‘Ameriprise’

Chicago Securities Fraud / Investment Fraud Lawyer

Chicago Securities Fraud / Investment Fraud Attorney

Are you seeking to recover investment losses incurred as a result of the fraud or negligence of your financial professional or brokerage firm?  The White Law Group may be able to help.

The White Law Group, LLC is a national securities fraud, securities arbitration, investor protection, and securities regulation/compliance law firm with offices in Chicago, Illinois and Boca Raton, Florida. With over 30 years of securities law experience, including experience working at FINRA (f/k/a the NASD) and the SEC, The White Law Group has the expertise to help investors defrauded in securities, investment and financial business transactions.

The White Law Group exclusively represents investors seeking to recover investment losses incurred as a result of the fraud or negligence of their financial professional or broker-dealer.  We review investment fraud cases involving all FINRA registered broker-dealers and have handled cases against most of the major broker-dealers, including Morgan Stanley, Wachovia, Wells Fargo, Banc of America, Merrill Lynch, Smith Barney, UBS, Edward Jones, Raymond James, Securities America, Royal Alliance, RBC Capital and Ameriprise.

The securities cases we review often involve some form of the following type of securities fraud:  unsuitability, churning (or excessive trading), unauthorized trading, failure to execute, improper use of margin, and overconcentration (holding off an inordinately large position of one investment).

We review tons of securities cases per year involving all manner and scope of securities frauds, but it seems that many of the cases that we review often involve the same general types of investment products.  Interestingly, these investment products are also the same products that pay financial advisors the highest commission.  The investment products that we most see being abused in reviewing securities fraud cases are cases involving REITs, variable annuities and variable universal life policies, Promissory Notes, Tenants-In-Common (TICs), and mutual funds (particularly proprietary mutual funds – when a brokerage firm pushes its own mutual funds (i.e. a UBS financial advisor recommending UBS mutual funds)).

To speak to an experienced securities attorney, please call The White Law Group at 312-238-9650.  For more information on the firm, please visit our website at http://www.whitesecuritieslaw.com.

UBS Promissory Note Securities Litigation

The White Law Group is currently representing two former UBS financial advisors in a litigation matter involving their alleged promissory note obligation to UBS. Based on our preliminary investigation, it appears that these particular financial advisors were forced to leave UBS because UBS did away with a trading program that was critical to their business and that the platform’s elimination greatly impacted their ability to effectively service their clients.

Notwithstanding the fact that these financial advisors were basically forced to leave UBS and their business has suffered as a result, UBS has sent the advisors a demand letter for the amounts they owe on their promissory note agreements and has indicated that they intend to file claims against these financial advisors for breach of contract if the matters are not quickly resolved.

We are investigating whether other UBS financial advisors were similarly forced to leave the firm as a result of the elimination of any trading platforms. Such information would assist us in demonstrating that UBS’s failure to provide these financial advisors with the necessary trading platform to conduct their business was a firm wide issue that impacted many financial advisors.

If you have any information that would assist us in our investigation, please contact our Chicago, Illinois office at 312-238-9650.

The White Law Group is a national securities litigation law firm with offices in Chicago, Illinois and Boca Raton, Florida. The firm is intimately familiar with the unique issues involved in promissory note cases, often representing financial advisors in promissory note litigation matters, and having (in the past) handled promissory note litigation cases on behalf of many of the larger broker-dealers (including Banc of America Investment Services, Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, Wells Fargo, Wachovia, and Ameriprise).

For more information on the firm, please visit our website at http://www.whitesecuritieslaw.com.

Common Securities Fraud Involving REITs (real estate investment trusts).

A real estate investment trust or REIT is a tax designation for a corporation investing in real estate that reduces or eliminates corporate income taxes. In return, REITs are required to distribute 90% of their income, which may be taxable, into the hands of the investors. The REIT structure was designed to provide a similar structure for investment in real estate as mutual funds provide for investment in stocks. The problem with REITs is that they are often not regulated like mutual funds and can offer some of the higher commissions to unscrupulous financial advisors seeking to earn money at the expense of their clients.

As such, anyone contemplating an investment in a REIT (particularly a private or unlisted Real Estate Investment Trust), should consider the motivations of the broker and brokerage firm selling it.

Unlisted REITs are particularly problematic investments because they are not traded on the New York Stock Exchange or Nasdaq market. Accordingly, they can be difficult for investors to sell and difficult for investors (or brokerage firms) to accurately value.

To overcome marketplace concerns, the managers and operators of private REITs typically offer brokers and brokerage firms higher commissions to sell their products to retail investors.

This strong commission-based motivation to sell unlisted and listed REITs has not gone unnoticed by regulators. In March 2009, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), began questioning multiple brokerage firms about their sales and promotion practices related to private or non-traded REITs.

In 2009, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged Ameriprise Financial Services, Inc. with fraud and accused the Minneapolis, Minnesota-based broker-dealer of receiving millions of dollars in secret payments as a condition of offering and selling certain REITs to its brokerage clients.

Ameriprise agreed to settle the charges without admitting wrongdoing and pay $17.3 million, the SEC said.

According to the SEC order: “Ameriprise received approximately $30.8 million in undisclosed compensation in connection with Ameriprise’s offer and sale to its brokerage customers of certain real estate investment trusts (‘REITs’) between 2000 and May 2004 … Ameriprise demanded this undisclosed compensation, which it referred to as ‘revenue sharing,’ in exchange for including the REITs on Ameriprise’s brokerage platform.”

FINRA also issued a regulatory notice (09-09) in February 2009 regarding additional concerns about post-sale representations surrounding private and unlisted REITs. In the regulatory notice, FINRA reminded brokers and brokerage firms of some of their obligations to investors: Specifically, once unlisted REIT customers have owned their investment for a while, their monthly statements should begin to contain a reasonably current estimated per share value of the unlisted REIT investment.

FINRA also reminded brokers and brokerage firms that they are prohibited from using a per share estimated value that’s based on data that’s more than 18 months old compared to the customer’s account statement date. According to FINRA, “ … firms must not use par value in a customer account statement more than 18 months following the conclusion of an offering, unless an appraisal of the program’s assets and operations yields the same value.”

The staleness of data used to value these unlisted REITs is particularly important due to the illiquid nature of these investments.

Notwithstanding the SEC and FINRA’s actions, abuse of unlisted and listed REITs is ongoing. If you have questions regarding a REIT investment you made, or if you believe that you have been the victim of a securities fraud, The White Law Group may be able to help. The White Law Group is a national securities fraud, securities arbitration and investor protection law firm with offices in Chicago, Illinois and Boca Raton, Florida. The firm has over 30 years of experience reviewing securities fraud claims throughout the country. To contact the firm, please call 312-238-9650. Or, for more information on The White Law Group, please visit our website at http://www.whitesecuritieslaw.com.

Representing Foreign Investors In FINRA Arbitrations

It is not uncommon for foreign investors to seek to establish an investing relationship with a United States based broker-dealer (either because the client is seeking the security of investing in U.S. investments, or because these firms provide the client with the ability to discreetly invest their assets outside of their home country).

Whether the client realized it or not when establishing their account with these U.S. broker-dealers, the client likely signed an arbitration agreement requiring them to submit to FINRA arbitration in the event of a dispute. In so doing, the client agreed to resolve any dispute (including a claim related to investment losses) through FINRA’s Dispute Resolution process.

The White Law Group, LLC is a national securities fraud, securities arbitration, investor protection, and securities regulation/compliance law firm with offices in Chicago, Illinois and Boca Raton, Florida. The firm represents foreign investors in claims against their U.S. brokerage firm in such FINRA arbitrations.

The Firm has its offices in Chicago, Illinois and Boca Raton, Florida because of the obvious benefits of being located so close to the FINRA Dispute Resolutions offices in those cities (FINRA’s Southeast headquarters is located at Boca Center Tower 1, 5200 Town Center Circle, Boca Raton, FL 33486- less than one mile from our office, and FINRA’s Midwest headquarters is located at 55 West Monroe Street, Suite 2600, Chicago, IL 60603-1002- close to the firm’s Chicago office).

Having our offices located so close to FINRA’s regional headquarters has its advantages, particularly since FINRA assigns cases to the FINRA office closest to where the client resides. For example, an investor residing in Central or South America will typically have their case assigned to FINRA’s Boca Raton, Florida Dispute Resolution office with the hearing conducted in Miami. As such, having our office located in Boca Raton has huge benefits in administering these cases. Additionally, Rose M. Schindler, who is Of Counsel to The White Law Group, is the former Regional Director of FINRA Dispute Resolution’s Boca Raton office.

We have reviewed cases on behalf of many foreign investors with claims against United States brokerage firms, including reviewing claims on behalf of investors residing in Colombia, Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Bolivia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Chile. These claims often involve large American brokerage firms servicing Latin American investors from their offices in Miami, firms such as Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, Wachovia, Wells Fargo, Ameriprise, and UBS.

With over 30 years of securities law experience, including experience working at FINRA (f/k/a the NASD) and the SEC, The White Law Group has the expertise to help investors defrauded in securities, investment and financial business transactions.

To contact The White Law Group, please call 312-238-9650. Or, for more information about The White Law Group or securities fraud, you can also visit our website at http://www.whitesecuritieslaw.com.