The Bear Stearns High Grade Funds blew up in the early summer of 2007, precipitating the the credit crisis around the world. On October 13, 2009, in federal court in Brooklyn, NY, Ralph Cioffi and Matthew Tannin, the portfolio managers of the High Grade Funds, will be facing criminal trial…
4,991securities arbitration cases have been filed at FINRA this year as of the end of August 2009. That is a 65% increase from 2008. Based upon our firm’s case log and speaking with other attorneys who represent investors in securities arbitrations, I expect the numbers to increase even more by…
Regions Morgan Keegan lost its biggest arbitration award to date related to its mutual funds which imploded during the subprime crisis. Former NBA ballplayer Horace Grant won an almost $1.5 million arbitration award against Morgan Keegan & Co. for losses in the bond mutual funds. The Los Angeles based Finra…
Citigroup suffered its first loss in an arbitration related to its MAT fund. A FINRA arbitration panel in Miami, FL awarded a claimant $250,000 plus interest accruing from March 1, 2009 until the award is paid. The arbitration hearing took place over four days in July and is reportedly the…
Finra filed an Investor Alert warning investors and reminding brokers and RIA’s that inverse ETF’s that offer leverage are very complex and are typically unsuitable for any retail investor who intends on holding them beyond one day. Inverse ETF’s are designed to perform inversely to an index or a benchmark…
Morgan Keegan, whose bond funds imploded in spectacular fashion in 2008, disclosed that it received a Wells Notice from the SEC on July 7, 2009. A Wells Notice is notification that the SEC staff intends to recommend that it bring an enforcement action for possible violations of federal securities laws.…
On June 29, 2009, Judge Denny Chin sentenced Bernard Madoff to 150 years in prison. Sitting in the courtroom that day was quite an experience. Below are my notes from that historic sentencing hearing. Judge Chin’s sentencing of the maximum sentence drew cheers from the crowd after almost a full…
We’ve seen securities fraud, hedge fund fraud, now private equity fraud? Prosecutors have charged Danny Pang who ran Private Equity Management Group in California with an up to $654 million fraud. The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that Pang allegedly extracted at least $83 million in inflated fees. The Pang…
Securities arbitration attorneys seem to be everywhere. Since the market collapse last October and the high profile securities frauds committed by Bernie Madoff and Allen Stanford, the ranks of attorneys who represent investors has grown significantly. As other litigation areas have struggled in this new economic climate, securities fraud is…
Over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives can be scary. Derivatives may pose an unsuitably high amount of risk for non-institutional investors yet are being sold by dealers around the world to investors who do not clearly understand the products. According to Reuters yesterday, U.S. Representative Stephen Lynch said that “taking a ‘soft approach”…