SEC Charges Morgan Stanley Smith Barney for Policy Deficiencies that Resulted in Failure to Prevent and Detect its Financial Advisors' Theft of Investor Funds
Washington, D.C.--(Newsfile Corp. - December 9, 2024) - The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged Morgan Stanley Smith Barney LLC (MSSB) with failing to reasonably supervise four investment adviser and registered representatives (hereafter, financial advisors) who stole millions of dollars of advisory clients’ and brokerage customers’ funds and for failing to adopt policies and procedures reasonably designed to prevent and detect such theft. To settle the charges, MSSB agreed to...
2024-12-09 5:51 PM EST
SEC Charges Ian Bell with Defrauding Professional Athletes and Others in Fraudulent Day-Trading Scheme
Washington, D.C.--(Newsfile Corp. - December 9, 2024) - The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged Denver resident Ian G. Bell with securities fraud for lying to investors and misappropriating their funds in connection with a fraudulent day-trading scheme. The SEC’s complaint alleges that, between July 2020 and March 2023, Bell raised more than $1.3 million from at least 29 investors, including professional athletes in Colorado, who are unidentified in the complaint. The SEC alleges...
2024-12-09 5:27 PM EST
SEC Announces Departure of Trading and Markets Division Director Haoxiang Zhu
Washington, D.C.--(Newsfile Corp. - December 9, 2024) - The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that Haoxiang Zhu, Director of the Division of Trading and Markets, will depart the agency effective Dec. 10, 2024. Upon Mr. Zhu’s departure, David Saltiel, a Deputy Director who also heads the Division’s Office of Analytics and Research, will serve as Acting Director. “I want to thank Haoxiang for his leadership of the Division of Trading and Markets for the last several years,”...
2024-12-09 1:23 PM EST
SEC Investor Advisory Committee to Examine Mandatory Arbitration Clauses in Adviser Agreements and Alternative Assets and Retail Investors at December 10 Meeting
Washington, D.C.--(Newsfile Corp. - December 3, 2024) - The Securities and Exchange Commission’s Investor Advisory Committee will hold a virtual public meeting on Dec. 10, 2024, at 10 a.m. ET. The meeting will be webcast on the SEC website. The committee will host two panels: Examining the Use of Mandatory Arbitration Clauses by registered Investment Advisers; and Mainstreaming of Alternative Assets to Retail Investors The committee also will discuss a potential recommendation regarding the...
2024-12-03 2:10 PM EST
SEC Charges Kiromic BioPharma and Two Former C-Suite Executives with Misleading Investors about Status of FDA Reviews
Washington, D.C.--(Newsfile Corp. - December 3, 2024) - The Securities and Exchange Commission today filed settled charges against Houston-based biotherapeutics company Kiromic BioPharma, Inc., its former CEO, Maurizio Chiriva-Internati, and its former chief financial officer, Tony Tontat, for failing to disclose material information about Kiromic’s two cancer fighting drug candidates before, during, and after a July 2021 follow-on public offering that raised $40 million. Kiromic and Tontat...
2024-12-03 9:19 AM EST
SEC Updates List of Firms Using Inaccurate Information to Solicit Investors
Washington, D.C.--(Newsfile Corp. - November 27, 2024) - The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that it updated its list of unregistered entities that use misleading information to solicit primarily non-U.S. investors, adding 14 soliciting entities, two impersonators of genuine firms, and four bogus regulators. The SEC’s list of soliciting entities that have been the subject of investor complaints, known as the Public Alert: Unregistered Soliciting Entities (PAUSE) list,...
2024-11-27 10:18 AM EST
SEC Charges Ken Leech, Former Co-Chief Investment Officer of Western Asset Management Co., with Fraud
Washington, D.C.--(Newsfile Corp. - November 25, 2024) - The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced fraud charges against Stephen Kenneth (“Ken”) Leech, the former co-chief investment officer (CIO) of registered investment adviser Western Asset Management Company LLC or WAMCO, for engaging in a multi-year scheme to allocate favorable trades to certain portfolios, while allocating unfavorable trades to other portfolios, a practice known as cherry-picking. The SEC’s complaint...
2024-11-25 5:27 PM EST
SEC Announces Enforcement Results for Fiscal Year 2024
Washington, D.C.--(Newsfile Corp. - November 22, 2024) - The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that it filed 583 total enforcement actions in fiscal year 2024 while obtaining orders for $8.2 billion in financial remedies, the highest amount in SEC history. The 583 enforcement actions represent a 26 percent decline in total enforcement actions compared to fiscal year 2023. Of those cases, the Commission filed 431 “stand-alone” actions, which was 14 percent less than in the...
2024-11-22 3:26 PM EST
SEC Charges Three Broker-Dealers with Filing Deficient Suspicious Activity Reports
Washington, D.C.--(Newsfile Corp. - November 22, 2024) - The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that broker-dealers Webull Financial LLC, Lightspeed Financial Services Group LLC, and Paulson Investment Company, LLC have agreed to settle charges that they filed with law enforcement suspicious activity reports (SARs) that failed to include important, required information. The three broker-dealers agreed to pay $275,000 combined in civil penalties to settle the SEC’s charges....
2024-11-22 11:38 AM EST
UPS to Pay $45 Million Penalty for Improperly Valuing Business Unit
Washington, D.C.--(Newsfile Corp. - November 22, 2024) - The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced settled charges against United Parcel Service Inc. for materially misrepresenting its earnings because it failed to follow generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) in valuing one of its worst performing businesses. According to the SEC’s order, UPS determined in 2019 that UPS Freight, a business unit that transported less-than-truckload shipments, was likely to sell for no...
2024-11-22 9:16 AM EST
SEC Charges Advisory Firm La Mancha and its Owner David Kushner with Fraud
Washington, D.C.--(Newsfile Corp. - November 21, 2024) - The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged David Kushner, a resident of Boca Raton, Florida, and his company La Mancha Funding Corp. with defrauding nearly two dozen investors out of approximately $2.1 million in a series of private securities offerings. Kushner is La Mancha’s president and sole owner. As alleged in the SEC’s complaint, Kushner and La Mancha raised approximately $10.5 million from investors through a series of...
2024-11-21 2:43 PM EST
SEC Chair Gensler to Depart Agency on January 20
Washington, D.C.--(Newsfile Corp. - November 21, 2024) - The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that its 33rd Chair, Gary Gensler, will step down from the Commission effective at 12:00 pm on January 20, 2025. Chair Gensler began his tenure on April 17, 2021, in the immediate aftermath of the GameStop market events. He led the agency through a robust rulemaking agenda to enhance efficiency, resiliency, and integrity in the U.S. capital markets. He also oversaw high-impact...
2024-11-21 1:14 PM EST
SEC Charges Three Senior Executives in Two Actions Alleging Massive Bribery Scheme Involving Indian Energy Companies Adani Green and Azure Power
Washington, D.C.--(Newsfile Corp. - November 20, 2024) - The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged Gautam Adani and Sagar Adani, executives of Adani Green Energy Ltd., and Cyril Cabanes, an executive of Azure Power Global Ltd., for conduct arising out of a massive bribery scheme. According to the SEC’s allegations, the bribery scheme was orchestrated to enable the two renewable energy companies to capitalize on a multi-billion-dollar solar energy project that the companies had been...
2024-11-20 4:12 PM EST
SEC Charges BIT Mining with FCPA Violations in Connection with Bribery Scheme to Influence Members of Japanese Parliament
Washington, D.C.--(Newsfile Corp. - November 18, 2024) - The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that BIT Mining Ltd., formerly known as 500.com Limited, agreed to pay a $4 million civil penalty to resolve charges that it violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) from 2017 to 2019 by engaging in a widespread bribery scheme to influence numerous foreign officials, including members of Japan’s parliament, in efforts to establish an integrated resort casino in Japan....
2024-11-18 4:12 PM EST
SEC Charges Invesco Advisers for Making Misleading Statements About Supposed Investment Considerations
Washington, D.C.--(Newsfile Corp. - November 8, 2024) - The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged Invesco Advisers, Inc. for making misleading statements about the percentage of company-wide assets under management that integrated environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors in investment decisions. The Atlanta-based registered investment adviser agreed to pay a $17.5 million civil penalty to settle the SEC’s charges. According to the SEC’s order, from 2020 to 2022, Invesco...
2024-11-08 9:08 AM EST
JP Morgan Affiliates to Pay $151 Million to Resolve SEC Enforcement Actions
Washington D.C.--(Newsfile Corp. - October 31, 2024) - The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged J.P. Morgan Securities LLC (JPMS) and J.P. Morgan Investment Management Inc. (JPMIM) – both affiliates of JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JP Morgan) – in five separate enforcement actions for failures including misleading disclosures to investors, breach of fiduciary duty, prohibited joint transactions and principal trades, and failures to make recommendations in the best interest of customers....
2024-10-31 5:15 PM EDT
SEC Announces New Members of Small Business Capital Formation Advisory Committee
Washington, D.C.--(Newsfile Corp. - October 30, 2024) - The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced four new members of the Small Business Capital Formation Advisory Committee. The new members were appointed to four-year terms and will join the 14 current Commission-appointed committee members. “I thank the new members for their willingness to serve on the Advisory Committee, which plays an important role in our work to facilitate capital formation for companies of every size,”...
2024-10-30 11:11 AM EDT
SEC Adopts Rule Amendments and New Rule to Improve Risk Management and Resilience of Covered Clearing Agencies
Washington D.C.--(Newsfile Corp. - October 25, 2024) - The Securities and Exchange Commission today adopted rule amendments and a new rule to improve the resilience and recovery and wind-down planning of covered clearing agencies. The rule amendments establish new requirements regarding a covered clearing agency’s collection of intraday margin as well as a covered clearing agency’s reliance on substantive inputs to its risk-based margin model. The new rule prescribes requirements for the...
2024-10-25 5:25 PM EDT
SEC Small Business Advisory Committee to Discuss Approaches to Venture Capital Fundraising and Challenges Facing Emerging Fund Managers
Washington, D.C.--(Newsfile Corp. - October 25, 2024) - The Securities and Exchange Commission’s Small Business Capital Formation Advisory Committee today released the agenda for its meeting on Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024. The meeting will include a discussion of how venture capital fund managers are raising capital, including the limits of arm’s length fundraising and challenges facing emerging fund managers. Members of the public can watch the live meeting via webcast on www.sec.gov. The...
2024-10-25 10:04 AM EDT
SEC Charges Four Companies With Misleading Cyber Disclosures
Washington, D.C.--(Newsfile Corp. - October 22, 2024) - The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged four current and former public companies – Unisys Corp., Avaya Holdings Corp., Check Point Software Technologies Ltd, and Mimecast Limited – with making materially misleading disclosures regarding cybersecurity risks and intrusions. The SEC also charged Unisys with disclosure controls and procedures violations. The companies agreed to pay the following civil penalties to settle the...
2024-10-22 9:25 AM EDT