SEC Announces Enforcement Results for FY 2013
The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that the agency’s enforcement actions in fiscal year 2013 resulted in a record $3.4 billion in monetary sanctions ordered against wrongdoers. The SEC filed 686 enforcement actions in the fiscal year that ended in September. The $3.4 billion in disgorgement and penalties resulting from those actions is 10 percent higher than FY 2012 and 22 percent higher than FY 2011, when the SEC filed the most actions in agency history. “A strong enforcement program helps produce financial markets that operate with integrity and transparency, and reassures investors that they can invest with…
Read MoreSEC Charges Perpetrators of Prime Bank Schemes in Las Vegas and Switzerland
The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced fraud charges against a company named with an acronym for “Make A Lot Of Money” that is behind a pair of advance fee schemes guaranteeing astronomical returns to investors in purported prime bank transactions and overseas debt instruments. The SEC alleges that Swiss-based Malom Group AG and several individuals conducted the schemes from Las Vegas and Zurich. They raised $11 million from U.S. investors by using a series of lies and forged documents to steer them into seemingly successful foreign trading programs that were nothing more than vehicles to steal money. Advance fee…
Read MoreSEC to Hold Compliance Outreach Program for Investment Companies and Investment Advisers
The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced the opening of registration for its compliance outreach program’s national seminar for investment companies and investment advisers. The event is intended to help these firms’ Chief Compliance Officers (CCOs) and other senior personnel to enhance their compliance programs for the protection of investors. The SEC’s Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations (OCIE), Division of Investment Management, and the Asset Management Unit of the Division of Enforcement jointly sponsor the compliance outreach program. The national seminar will be held on January 30 at the SEC’s Washington, D.C., headquarters from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.…
Read MoreSEC Charges Merrill Lynch With Misleading Investors in CDOs
The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged Merrill Lynch with making faulty disclosures about collateral selection for two collateralized debt obligations (CDO) that it structured and marketed to investors, and maintaining inaccurate books and records for a third CDO. Merrill Lynch agreed to pay $131.8 million to settle the SEC’s charges. The SEC’s order instituting settled administrative proceedings finds that Merrill Lynch failed to inform investors that hedge fund firm Magnetar Capital LLC had a third-party role and exercised significant influence over the selection of collateral for the CDOs entitled Octans I CDO Ltd. and Norma CDO I Ltd. Magnetar…
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