Muni Bond Issuer and Underwriter Charged With Disclosure Failures
The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that a municipal financing authority in Beaumont, California, and its then-executive director have agreed to settle charges that they made false statements about prior compliance with continuing disclosure obligations in five bond offerings. Also settling charges are the underwriting firm behind those offerings and its co-founder for failing to conduct reasonable due diligence on the continuing disclosure representations. The SEC’s Enforcement Division uncovered the violations as part of a review of municipal issuers and underwriters that did not voluntarily self-report under the agency’s Municipalities Continuing Disclosure Cooperation (MCDC) Initiative. The Beaumont Financing Authority…
Read MoreSEC Charges Investment Adviser With Defrauding Professional Athlete and His Wife
The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged investment adviser Jeremy Drake with defrauding two clients, a high profile professional athlete and the athlete’s wife, by deceiving them about the investment advisory fees they were paying. The SEC alleges that Drake went to elaborate lengths to conceal his fraud, including creating and sending false documents and masquerading as another person to corroborate his lies. The SEC alleges that Drake, then with Los Angeles-based HCR Wealth Advisors, deceived the clients for more than three years, telling them that they paid a special “VIP” annual rate of 0.15 to 0.20 percent of their…
Read MoreHedge Fund Adviser Charged for Inadequate Controls to Prevent Insider Trading
The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that hedge fund advisory firm Deerfield Management Company L.P. has agreed to pay more than $4.6 million to settle charges that it failed to establish, maintain, and enforce policies and procedures reasonably designed to prevent the misuse of inside information, including information about confidential government decisions. The case relates to insider trading charges that the SEC recently filed against current and former Deerfield analysts, a political intelligence analyst who passed them information, and an employee at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). According to the SEC’s order, Deerfield conducted extensive research…
Read MoreCommission and Commission Staff Issue Updates to Interpretive Guidance on Revenue Recognition
The Securities and Exchange Commission today issued two releases and the SEC staff released a Staff Accounting Bulletin to update interpretive guidance regarding revenue recognition. Consistent with developments in private-sector accounting standard setting, the SEC issued a release to update its guidance for bill-and-hold arrangements by stating that registrants should no longer refer to the criteria in Accounting and Auditing Enforcement Release No. 108, In the Matter of Stewart Parness (AAER 108), to recognize revenue for such arrangements upon the registrants' adoption of Accounting Standards Codification (ASC) Topic 606, Revenue from Contracts with Customers. The release states that until a registrant adopts ASC…
Read MoreBanca IMI Securities to Pay $35 Million for Improper Handling of ADRs in Continuing SEC Crackdown
The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that broker Banca IMI Securities Corp. (BISC), an indirect, wholly-owned U.S. subsidiary of Italian bank Intesa Sanpaolo SpA, has agreed to pay more than $35 million to settle charges that it violated federal securities laws when it requested the issuance of and received American Depositary Receipts (ADRs) without possessing the underlying foreign shares. ADRs are U.S. securities that represent shares of a foreign company, and for all issued ADRs there must be a corresponding number of foreign shares held in custody at a depositary bank. Under “pre-release agreements,” brokers such as BISC may…
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