Below is an On Wall Street piece about our firm’s representation of a Saudi investor in a $383 million FINRA arbitration against Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.
Citigroup Aims to Stop Arbitration From Proceeding By Lorie Konish, On Wall Street October 7, 2011
A new lawsuit filed by Citigroup Global Markets Inc. this week against a set of Saudi family investors with a $383 million claim against the firm will determine whether that case can proceed to arbitration.
Below is a story about CGMI’s attempt to stay a $383 million FINRA arbitration filed by our firm related to inappropriate behavior with respect to derivatives, hedge funds, and private equity transactions.
Oct. 6 (Bloomberg) — A Citigroup Inc. unit sued two Saudi investors seeking to block Financial Industry Regulatory Authority arbitration of their $383 million claim that the bank “wiped out” their family’s wealth.
Abdullah and Ghazi Abbar, a father and son from Jeddah who put family money into hedge funds, have no customer agreements or accounts with Citigroup Global Markets Inc., a New York-based broker dealer that they blame for mismanaging their family’s life savings, according to a complaint the Citigroup unit filed yesterday in federal court in Manhattan.
OTC Derivatives fraud aspect to an interesting Futures Magazine piece
CFTC, SEC Differ on New Derivatives Rules
6/26/2011
Recent Securities Fraud tweets by Ross Intelisano:
FT: Investigators listened in on almost 100 clients of Primary Global. Buyer (and Seller) Beware. http://t.co/GRNEcNs · reply · retweet · favorite
MBIA Drops Merrill Fraud Case.Hard to tell if ML settled with dollars or MBIA forced to just withdraw.Bad news if latter http://t.co/kwPT9t8 2 hours ago · reply · retweet · favorite
Below is the Regions press release related to regulatory order for it to pay $200 million due to its actions related to the Morgan Keegan bond funds. Strangely, it announced also that it retained Goldman to explore selling Morgan Keegan. Regions has been extremely aggressive in defending the scores of arbitration claims filed by aggrieved investors of the Morgan Keegan bond funds, even consistently challenging in court arbitration awards it’s lost. A big issue going forward for our clients and other investors with pending arbitrations is how will the restitution fund, the SEC Order, the FINRA AWC and the potential sale of Morgan Keegan effect the cases.
Morgan Keegan Settles Regulatory Issues with SEC, FINRA, and State Regulators Regarding Former Fund Management Business; Regions to Explore Strategic Alternatives for Morgan Keegan
BIRMINGHAM, Ala., Jun 22, 2011 (BUSINESS WIRE) — Regions Financial Corp. (NYSE:RF) announced today that its brokerage and investment banking subsidiary, Morgan Keegan & Company, Inc., and its asset management subsidiary, Morgan Asset Management, have agreed to a settlement of previously disclosed regulatory matters with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), and a group of state securities regulators with respect to issues concerning certain mutual funds and closed-end funds (the RMK Funds), a business that Morgan Asset Management divested in 2008.
Below is FINRA’s press release of the $200M restitution order the SEC and FINRA levied on Regions Morgan Keegan (RMK) related to bond funds it misrepresented to investors. Big for investors. We had blogged about this in April 2010 when the SEC charged Morgan Keegan & Company, Morgan Asset Management and two employees with fraudulently overstating the value of securities backed by subprime mortgages. These were the first federal government allegations related to the Regions Morgan Keegan bond funds which lost significant value in 2008. Many law firms around the U.S., including our firm, have been retained by investors who lost money in the Regions Morgan Keegan funds. Big fight will be to get fines into evidence during the pending arbitrations.
Morgan Keegan Ordered to Pay $200 Million to Investors to Settle Allegations Regarding Sales of Bond Funds Sales Materials Made Exaggerated Claims and Failed to Disclose Risks; Supervisory System Failures
WASHINGTON – The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and five state regulators from Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi, South Carolina and Tennessee announced today that each has settled enforcement proceedings against Morgan Keegan & Company, Inc. Morgan Keegan will pay restitution of $200 million for customers who invested in seven affiliated bond funds, including the Regions Morgan Keegan Select Intermediate Bond Fund (Intermediate Fund). Morgan Keegan’s affiliate, Morgan Asset Management, managed the funds.
What is it going to take for the SEC to respond accordingly to tips of insider trading and hedge-fund fraud? When initial suspicion of Bernie Madoff’s widespread Ponzi scheme was discovered by FINRA, the SEC was slow to act on it. Now, multiple referrals from FINRA of suspicious trading at the hedge-fund firm, SAC Capital Advisors LP, have emerged and the SEC is hesitant to take further action once again. Below is the article from the Wall Street Journal regarding this issue.
Referrals on SAC Disclosed By JEAN EAGLESHAM June 16th, 2011
The Securities and Exchange Commission has received 65 referrals of suspicious trading at hedge-fund firm SAC Capital Advisors LP over the last decade, or 46 more than previously disclosed, according to Sen. Charles Grassley.
Fraud in the privately traded markets? Aline van Duyn of the FT wrote a fascinating piece over the weekend about the lessons of the Galleon case going much wider than stocks. We agree. Next wave of large and complex fraud will be in non-exchange traded products. Here is the piece.
Lessons of Galleon case go wider than stocks
By Aline van Duyn in New York
Below is an interesting Reuters piece by Matt Goldstein which quotes Ross Intelisano regarding securities fraud and Ponzi schemes.
Special Report: A fame-seeking Philly trader’s rap falls flat Photo Thu, May 12 2011
By Matthew Goldstein
I couldn’t fight it any more. I started tweeting on securities fraud a few weeks ago. Here is the link: http://twitter.com/#!/rossbi – Basically, I’m curating (hipster word alert) news stories related to Wall Street with a little comment layered over it. Have found it very helpful to follow breaking news and long form stories related to the Street via Twitter. Over-tweeting frustrates me – similar to people who talk too much. Take a look if you’re interested.
Securities Fraud Attorney Blog
