Iorio Altamirano LLP is investigating potential claims involving investments in L Bonds offered by GWG Holdings (Nasdaq: GWGH). On July 26, 2021, GWG Holdings canceled its Combined 2020/2021 Annual Meeting of Stockholders originally convened and adjourned on May 28, 2021. Prior to this cancellation, on July 7, 2021, Nasdaq warned…
FINRA has suspended Fusion Analytics Securities, LLC’s former Chief Compliance Officer Luis Fernando Restrepo from the securities industry for a six-month period over compliance and supervisory failures related to, among other things, the sale of private placements. Mr. Restrepo consented to a six-month suspension from associating with any FINRA member…
FINRA has barred former LPL Financial LLC broker Jason LaBelle from the securities industry. Mr. LaBelle was expelled from the brokerage industry for failing to provide information requested pursuant to FINRA Rule 8210, in connection with a FINRA investigation of Mr. LaBelle’s possible violation of a prior AWC. Back in…
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (“FINRA”) has barred financial advisor Enoch Booth from the securities industry for refusing to cooperate with a FINRA investigation into whether Mr. Booth engaged in unauthorized private securities transactions and outside business activities. FINRA launched the investigation after Valic Financial Advisors, Inc. terminated Mr. Booth’s…
On July 21, 2021, the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) announced an award of nearly $3 million to a whistleblower who alerted the SEC to previously unknown conduct that led to a successful SEC enforcement action. According to Emily Pasquinelli, Acting Chief of the SEC’s Office of the Whistleblower, the…
StockCross Financial Services, Inc. (“StockCross Financial”), which was acquired by Muriel Siebert & Co., Inc. (“Muriel Siebert”), consented to a censure and $250,000 fine in connection with FINRA’s findings that between July 2009 and December 2019, StockCross Financial had no reasonable surveillance system to review solicited transactions for excessive trading…
On July 19, 2021, UBS Financial Services Inc. (“UBS”) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) settled charges related to UBS’s failure to adopt and implement written policies and procedures reasonably designed to prevent unsuitable investments in volatility-linked-exchange-traded products (“ETPs”) between January 2016 and January 2018. As a result of…
On July 15, 2021, the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) announced an award of more than $1 million to a whistleblower. According to Emily Pasquinelli, Acting Chief of the SEC’s Office of the Whistleblower, the whistleblower “played a crucial role” by providing the SEC with valuable information and ongoing assistance.…
FINRA has fined and censured Laidlaw & Company (UK) Ltd. (“Laidlaw”) over the firm’s supervisory system, which according to the regulator, was not reasonably designed to achieve compliance with federal securities laws and FINRA rules prohibiting market manipulation. As a result, Laidlaw was fined $1.5 million. Additionally, the firm’s Chief…
FINRA has fined and censured NEXT Financial Group, Inc. (“NEXT”) over supervisory failures related to unsuitable short-term trading of mutual funds and municipal bonds, and over-concentration of customer accounts in Puerto Rican municipal bonds. NEXT was fined $750,000 and consented to provide a certification to FINRA, within 120 days, regarding…