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”…
UBS was sued by the New Hampshire Bureau of Securities Regulation last week for selling unsuitable Lehman Brothers structured notes to retail investors as a conservative investment. These structured notes were debt obligations that also contains an embedded derivative component with characteristics that adjust the security’s risk/return profile. According to…
An employment arbitration award worth $4.1 billion was confirmed this week by the Los Angeles County Superior Court. The arbitration was heard before JAMS and the defendants included iFreedom Communications International Holdings, Limited, and its founder, Timothy Ringgenberg. This is one of the most significant employment awards ever rendered in…
Investors who file securities arbitrations received a quiet victory at the end of May. FINRA, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, quietly withdrew a proposal to the discovery rules in securities arbitrations that would have obliged investors to disclose even more of their financial histories than the present rules provide. FINRA’s…
Over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives are very complicated investments. OTC derivatives are sometimes defined as contracts that are traded (and privately negotiated) directly between two parties, without going through an exchange or other intermediary. They include swaps (such as credit default swaps (CDS)) and interest rate, currency and commodities contracts. The OTC…
Securities arbitration cases are being filed at a much greater pace so far in 2009 than they were in 2007 and 2008. FINRA, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, which administers most of the securities arbitrations filed in the U.S., released its case filing statistics as of April 2009. According to…
Morgan Keegan has lost six FINRA arbitrations in the last two months related to the Regions Morgan Keegan funds which lost significant value in 2008. One of the recent awards included punitive damages. Many law firms around the U.S., including our firm, have been retained by investors who lost money…
Lehman Brothers structured notes were sold worldwide by firms including UBS and Citigroup as a conservative investment. They turned out to be very risky and worthless. Investors around the globe are investigating what potential legal claims they may have, against whom and where. These issues need to be analyzed in…
The Madoff Affair is a one hour special airing on Frontline on PBS on Tuesday, May 12th at 9pm. Correspondent Martin Smith and award winning producer Marcella Gaviria produced the program. Through exclusive television interviews with those closest to Madoff’s operation, they unearth the details of the world’s first global…
The SEC filed the first case alleging insider trading in credit default swaps (CDS) yesterday. It’s likely the first of many. CDS’s are derivatives which are essentially a form of insurance against a bond default. The $38.6 trillion CDS market is rife with problems and was used to wildly speculate…