The SEC has taken action that should send shivers up the spines of many of Wall Street investment banks. The SEC recently charged 10 brokers associated with the now-defunct Brookstreet Securities Corp. (out of Irvine, California) with fraud for falsely marketing investments in complex derivative securities backed by mortgages as safe and suitable for retirees […]
Pro-business advocates continue to lobby for establishing the United States as a “free fraud zone” where “anything goes” conduct is acceptable. A recent advertisement by the Washington Legal Foundation, a self-described “advocate for freedom and justice” which campaigns for pro-business legal reform, claims that securities fraud lawsuits “are lawful Ponzi schemes,” and that “the lawyers […]
Investors in auction rate securities have begun suing issuers of the securities and their executive officers in an effort to recoup damages. An investor who lost money in the auction rate securities market recently filed a federal class action lawsuit against the executive officers of MRU Holdings, Inc., a student loan lender that is now […]
OppenheimerFunds, Inc. is facing a number of class actions, investor claims and investigations by five states into losses associated with its bond funds. According to Morningstar, Inc. of Chicago, the funds lost 29% last year compared with a 7.9% average decline for bond mutual funds overall.
On Monday, Judge Shirley Wohl Kram of the U.S. District Court for the SDNY ruled that a putative class action against Moody’s Corp. can go forward. See “Shareholder lawsuit vs Moody’s allowed to proceed,” by Martha Grayhow, Reuters, Monday, Feb. 23, 2009. The lawsuit seeks class action status on behalf of Moody’s investors who purchased […]
Scammed investors are often shocked to discover that they face insurmountable barriers when they seek to recover their losses in court, says Jane Bryant Quinn in a February 11, 2009 article on Bloomberg.com entitled “Madoff Victims Face Grim Prospects in Court.” Investors have filed suits against “feeder funds” that, unbeknownst to investors, funneled their money […]
Compelling pieces of evidence, including sworn statements from Bank of America, have been uncovered indicating that, during recent years, Wall Street brokerage firms conspired to cheat state and local governments and American taxpayers in the municipals markets. Municipal bonds are issued by state and local governments to raise funds for various public projects. Since the […]
Even sophisticated investors can be defrauded. M&T Bank Corporation, a bank holding company with a market capitalization of $4.4 billion, is suing Deutsche Bank to recover over $80 million in losses relating to an investment in a a collateralized debt obligation (CDO) called Gemstone, reported Vikas Bajaj in the January 20th edition of the New […]
The dismissal of a federal class action securities lawsuit does not mean that investors are necessarily barred from seeking recovery of losses that they have sustained as a result of inappropriate conduct. For example, as often happens, a federal appeals court this week dismissed a class action lawsuit against auto parts supplier Visteon Corp. and […]
Some economic pundits are blaming some of the latest market problems on the jettisoning of several Depression era protections for investors, such as the repeal of the Glass-Steagal Act, which used to separate commercial banks from investment broker/dealers and the repeal of the Uptick Rule on short sales that may be contributing to the wave […]
