Broker-dealers that sold billions of dollars in fraudulent private placements, such as Medical Capital and Provident Royalties notes, “failed massively in their due diligence responsibilities to investors” according to Gordon Yale, a CPA and expert witness in securities fraud cases. (See “Private-placement due diligence ‘sloppy,'” Investment News). They grossly misrepresented investigations into the investments and issuers they claimed to have performed, and, in fact, merely relied on self-serving representations made by management that were false and fraudulent.