Posts tagged ‘securities law firm’
FINRA Fines Edward Jones For Supervisory And Recordkeeping Failures.
FINRA recently announced that it has fined Edward D. Jones & Co., L.P. of St. Louis $900,000 for its failure to timely deliver official statements to customers who purchased new-issue municipal securities and related supervisory and recordkeeping failures.
With limited exceptions, broker-dealers selling a new-issue municipal securities are required under the rules of the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board (MSRB) — which are enforced by FINRA — to deliver a copy of the official statement to the customer on or before settlement date. New-issue securities are those sold during the initial distribution of bonds to the public.
FINRA found that Edward Jones’s late deliveries occurred when the firm was conducting retail transactions but was not a member of the underwriting syndicate for a new issue.
FINRA further found that the firm’s failures from 2002 through 2006 were systemic. During that time period, Edward Jones engaged in approximately 100,000 new-issue municipal bond transactions in which it was not an underwriter. For a significant number of those transactions, the firm was late in delivering official statements to its customers. The firm’s systemic late deliveries had multiple causes, including lack of training for employees, incorrect instructions to employees, limited photocopying capacity and errors by employees of the firm, including trading supervisors.
The late deliveries continued. In September 2008 alone, the firm was late in mailing official statements to customers in over 6,200 transactions, which represented 19 percent of the firm’s municipal bond transactions covered by the applicable MSRB rule.
FINRA further found that Edward Jones’s own internal communications repeatedly referenced that it was not timely delivering official statements. Nevertheless, the firm failed to take reasonable and sufficient steps to comply with its delivery obligations.
FINRA also found that Edward Jones failed to keep required records, did not have written supervisory procedures addressing the requirements for delivery of official statements until May 2006, and that those procedures contained incorrect guidance. As part of the settlement, an officer of Edward Jones will certify that it has adopted and implemented systems and procedures reasonably designed to ensure compliance with MSRB rules, including systems and procedures to provide adequate oversight if third party vendors are utilized.
In settling this matter, Edward Jones neither admitted nor denied the charges, but consented to the entry of FINRA’s findings.
According to its own website, Edward Jones has over 10,000 branch offices throughout the country (more than any other investment firm in America).
If you have questions about municipal securities you purchased through Edward Jones, The White Law Group may be able to help. For a free consultation, call the firm at 312-238-9650.
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.
For more information on The White Law Group, please visit our website at http://www.whitesecuritieslaw.com.
FINRA Fines Deutsche Bank Securities For Negligently Misrepresenting Information On Subprime Mortgages.
FINRA recently announced that it has fined Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc. $7.5m for “negligently misrepresenting” delinquency information on subprime mortgages underlying securities issued in 2006.
FINRA found that Deutsche misrepresented and underreported the share of delinquent mortgages in the prospectus supplements of six subprime residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) worth $2.2bn. Deutsche described in these supplements a method of calculating delinquencies that differed from the methods actually used at the firm.
For example, FINRA found that Deutsche reported 8.75% of the loans in one MBS deal was between 30 and 59 days delinquent, corresponding to $14m in delinquent loans. The actual delinquency numbers computed under the method disclosed by Deutsche showed a significantly larger share — 24.02% — of mortgages 30-59 days delinquent, corresponding to $38.5m loans.
Additionally, FINRA said that Deutsche failed to correct errors by a third-party vendor and servicers that underreported historical delinquency rates in connection with its offer and sale of 16 additional subprime RMBS deals issued in 2007.
If you have questions about subprime mortgage investments you made with Deutsche Bank, The White Law Group may be able to help. For a free consultation, call 312-238-9650,
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.
For more information on The White Law Group, please visit our website at http://www.whitesecuritieslaw.com.
FINRA Fines Piper Jaffray For Rules Violations.
FINRA recently announced that it has fined Piper Jaffray & Co. $700,000 for violations related to its failure to retain approximately 4.3 million emails from November 2002 through December 2008. Piper Jaffray also failed to inform FINRA of its email retention and retrieval issues, which impacted the firm’s ability to comply completely with email extraction requests from FINRA. It also may have affected the firm’s ability to respond fully to email requests from other regulators or from parties in civil litigation or arbitrations.
Piper Jaffray had previously been sanctioned for email retention failures in November 2002, in a joint action by the Securities and Exchange Commission, New York Stock Exchange Regulation and NASD arising from investigations of the firm’s conflicts of interest between its investment banking and research departments. As part of that settlement, Piper Jaffray was required to review its systems and certify that it had established systems and procedures designed to preserve electronic mail communications. The firm made that certification to regulators in March 2003. At no time did the firm alert regulators that its system was experiencing problems.
FINRA discovered Piper Jaffray’s continuing email retention deficiencies when its investigators requested all emails sent or received by a former firm employee suspected of misconduct. The firm provided a CD-ROM purportedly containing all of the employee’s emails, on both his firm and Bloomberg email accounts. When reviewing the CD-ROM’s contents, however, FINRA discovered that one particular email was not produced that investigators had already obtained in hard copy form – an email whose contents sparked an internal investigation that led to the employee’s termination, and formed the basis for a FINRA enforcement action against the employee. Only after further inquiries about that missing email did the firm finally inform FINRA of the intermittent email retention and retrieval issues it had been experiencing firmwide since the November 2002 action.
In settling this matter, Piper Jaffray neither admitted nor denied the charges, but consented to the entry of FINRA’s findings.
If you have questions about investment you made with Piper Jaffray, 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.
For more information on The White Law Group, please visit our website at http://www.whitesecuritieslaw.com.
Rockford, Illinois Securities Fraud / Broker Fraud Attorney
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 White Law Group 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 all cases filed in the southeast portion of the United States are administered out of FINRA’s Boca Raton, Florida Dispute Resolution office, and all cases in the Midwest portion of the United States are administered out of FINRA’s Chicago, Illinois Dispute Resolution office. In fact, any securities fraud cases filed with FINRA on behalf of a customer living in Florida, Georgia, Alabama, North Carolina, South Carolina, Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee, Louisiana, Virginia, Puerto Rico, Delaware, and Washington, D.C. will likely be assigned to FINRA’s Southeast Region office and administered out of the Boca Raton, Florida office and any securities fraud case filed with FINRA on behalf of a customer living in North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Missouri, Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio and West Virginia will likely be assigned to FINRA’s Midwest Region office and administered out of the Chicago, Illinois office.
Although located in Chicago, Illinois and Boca Raton, Florida, The White Law Group handles securities fraud cases throughout the country and Illinois, including reviewing securities fraud cases in Chicago, Rockford, Crystal Lake, Arlington Heights, Glenview, Waukegan, Lake Forest, Elgin, and Wheaton. With over 30 years of securities law experience, 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.
Bismarck, North Dakota Securities Fraud / Broker Fraud Attorney
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 White Law Group 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 all cases filed in the southeast portion of the United States are administered out of FINRA’s Boca Raton, Florida Dispute Resolution office, and all cases in the Midwest portion of the United States are administered out of FINRA’s Chicago, Illinois Dispute Resolution office. In fact, any securities fraud cases filed with FINRA on behalf of a customer living in Florida, Georgia, Alabama, North Carolina, South Carolina, Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee, Louisiana, Virginia, Puerto Rico, Delaware, and Washington, D.C. will likely be assigned to FINRA’s Southeast Region office and administered out of the Boca Raton, Florida office and any securities fraud case filed with FINRA on behalf of a customer living in North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Missouri, Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio and West Virginia will likely be assigned to FINRA’s Midwest Region office and administered out of the Chicago, Illinois office.
Although located in Chicago, Illinois and Boca Raton, Florida, The White Law Group handles securities fraud cases throughout the country and North Dakota, including reviewing securities fraud cases in Bismarck, Grand Forks, Fargo, Jamestown, Devils Lake, Valley City, and Williston. With over 30 years of securities law experience, 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.