SEC Charges Businessman With Misusing EB-5 Investments
The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced fraud charges against an Oakland, Calif.-based businessman accused of misusing money he raised from investors through the EB-5 immigrant investor program intended to create or preserve jobs for U.S. workers. The SEC alleges that Thomas M. Henderson and his company San Francisco Regional Center LLC falsely claimed to foreign investors that their $500,000 investments would help create at least 10 jobs within several distinct EB-5 related businesses he created, including a nursing facility, call centers, and a dairy operation. This would qualify the investors for a potential path to permanent U.S. residency through…
Read MoreAllergan Paying $15 Million Penalty for Disclosure Failures During Merger Talks
The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that Allergan Inc. has agreed to admit securities law violations and pay a $15 million penalty for disclosure failures in the wake of a hostile takeover bid. The SEC’s order finds that Allergan failed to disclose in a timely manner its negotiations with potentially friendlier merger partners in the months following a tender offer from Valeant Pharmaceuticals International and co-bidders in June 2014. Allergan publicly stated in a disclosure filing that the Valeant bid was inadequate and it was not engaging in negotiations that could result in a merger. It was required to…
Read MoreBlackRock Charged With Removing Whistleblower Incentives in Separation Agreements
The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that New York-based asset manager BlackRock Inc. has agreed to pay a $340,000 penalty to settle charges that it improperly used separation agreements in which exiting employees were forced to waive their ability to obtain whistleblower awards. According to the SEC’s order, more than 1,000 departing BlackRock employees signed separation agreements containing violative language stating that they “waive any right to recovery of incentives for reporting of misconduct” in order to receive their monetary separation payments from the firm. BlackRock added the waiver provision in October 2011 after the SEC adopted its whistleblower…
Read MoreCitadel Securities Paying $22 Million for Misleading Clients About Pricing Trades
The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that Citadel Securities LLC has agreed to pay $22.6 million to settle charges that its business unit handling retail customer orders from other brokerage firms made misleading statements to them about the way it priced trades. The SEC’s order finds that Citadel Execution Services suggested to its broker-dealer clients that upon receiving retail orders they forwarded from their own customers, it either took the other side of the trade and provided the best price that it observed on various market data feeds or sought to obtain that price in the marketplace. The process…
Read MoreBNY Mellon Settles Charges Stemming From Miscalculations of Regulatory Capital Figures
The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that BNY Mellon has agreed to pay a $6.6 million penalty to settle charges stemming from miscalculations of its risk-based capital ratios and risk-weighted assets reported to investors. An SEC investigation found that BNY Mellon deviated from regulatory capital rules by excluding from its calculations approximately $14 billion in collateralized loan obligation assets that the firm consolidated onto its balance sheet in 2010. BNY Mellon never obtained Federal Reserve Board approval as required under regulatory capital rules to exclude the assets from its calculations. Due to the miscalculations and the firm’s lack of…
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