In federal court, the regulator sought to lift the stay in its civil case to submit an amended lawsuit and now also name brokers Ronald Heineman and Michael Morris, as well as lawyer Darren Ofsink. The SEC says that Morris and Heineman executed the scam through their brokerage firm awhile Ofsink made money illegally by selling unregistered shares even though no exemption for registration was valid. Per the amended SEC complaint, in Abraxas Discala, Marc Exler, and brokers Craig Josephburg and Matthew Bell were involved in a scam to raise the price of CodeSmart Holdings stock.

Heineman and Morris, who own Halcyon Cabot Partners-the firm where Josephberg was employed-allegedly were involved in the securities scam. The two men are accused of secretly consenting to buy shares of CodeSmart at pre-set prices so that Discala could liquidate his positions at prices that were artificially raised. Walker was convicted of tax evasion and mail fraud. She pled guilty last year to the criminal accounts. Walker offered financial planning services through the firm from October through March She also was registered with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority and was a securities agent under the Minnesota Department of Commerce.

Because of this, says the fund, it sustained substantial losses when Tesco announced in September that it had overstated profits because of accounting irregularities. The Irving pension fund wants to get class action status. In its securities fraud case, the Texas fund contended that Tesco purposely deceived the public. The plaintiffs contend that the retirement plan provider was self-dealing in the FMR LLC Profit Sharing Plan and making money at their expense by offering employees high-cost fund options and making them pay excessive fees.

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Over 50, ex- and present employees are eligible to receive from the settlement. Fidelity is accused of providing just its own funds in the retirement plan for its workers, with certain investment options having little if any track record, while failing to use an impartial process when choosing the investment options. The company also will keep offering a default investment alternative, the Fidelity Freedom Funds-Class.

The Portfolio Advisory Services at Work program will be provided for free. Ruling in Halliburton v. John Fund , the U. Supreme Court has left the fraud-on-the-market theory intact.

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However, they may have made it easier for large companies to get the courts to throw out class action securities cases sooner. Under the theory, securities fraud lawyers can use stock prices as proof that a company took part in fraud without having to prove that investors depended on company statements or omissions of statements when making decisions.

Many corporate lawyers had hoped that the court would get rid of the precedent it made when it ruled in Basic V. Levinson more than 25 years ago. Justice Clarence Thomas, who ruled unanimously with the court, issued a separate opinion and was joined by Justices Samuel Alito and Antonin Scala. He said that Basic should have been overruled. The US Supreme Court has agreed to hear Halliburton v. In it, the Texas-based multinational corporation is appealing a class action securities lawsuit that tests the fraud-on-the market theory.

The fraud-on-the-market theory is premised upon the efficient markets hypothesis, which is that the price of a stock is a reflection of all public data. This makes it possible for plaintiff attorneys to set up a class action for all the buyers of a stock without having to first prove in court that these purchasers depended upon untrue information from the company and that this caused their losses.

In Dallas, Chief Judge Sidney A. Fitzwater of the U.

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However, Fitzwater said that the plaintiffs can re-plead their case and they have 30 days to do so from June Also, Verizon would be handing over to Prudential the responsibility of giving pension benefits to approximately 41, retired employees.

These transferred retirees are no longer part of the plan, while the about 50, beneficiaries and participants not included in the transaction are still part of the plan. The federal court in Texas had certified each group as a transferee class and the other as a non-transferee one, respectively.

Despite observing that choosing an annuity provider is a function that is a fiduciary one, Judge Fitzwater said that amending a plan is not a fiduciary function.

He did say, however, that elements of the way Verizon executed the direct of the amendment might be considered fiduciary functions. It was Fitzwater who earlier this year gave the 41, Verizon management retirees class status after he found that there were too many plaintiffs for them to each have their own lawsuit.

The securities complaint, which was filed in the U. The plaintiffs are contending Texas Securities Act violations, aiding and abetting participation in a fraud scam, aiding and abetting breach of fiduciary duty, and conspiracy. This included helping him establish sales and marketing offices in the US. Loumiet and Greenberg Traurig also allegedly helped Stanford set up the transactions that would allow the Ponzi mastermind to use the money he took from Stanford International Bank Ltd.

The law firm is also accused of giving Stanford securities law counsel and advice on a regularly basis. FINRA has filed a temporary cease-and-desist order barring WR Rice Financial Services Inc. Wilson, its owner, from taking part in allegedly fraudulent sales activities and the conversion of assets or funds. Per the broker fraud case , the broker-dealer and Wilson got investors to participate by promising them that their funds would be placed in land contracts in Michigan on residential real estate and that the interest rate they would get would be 9.

Speaking via teleconference at the American Law Institute-Continuing Legal Education Group conference on life insurance products on November 1, Champ reported that investors in the study agreed that the mutual fund summary prospectuses were user-friendly. He expressed optimism that a summary prospectus for variable annuities could give significant disclosures and related benefits if designed and implemented well and that the framework used for the mutual fund summary prospectus should prove to be an effective model.

About 1, brokers are part of this class. However, some 3, ex-Merrill brokers have submitted deferred compensation claims against the brokerage firm for the same reason. Merrill had refused to give these employees their deferred compensation, which is what a broker usually gets paid for staying with a financial firm for a specific number of years, when they resigned after the merger. The class action settlement was presented to U. District Judge Alison Nathan at Manhattan federal court on Friday.

However, it is not known at this time how many brokers will go for this settlement if it is approved. It is not unusual for many to opt not to be part of a class action settlement and instead seek to obtain more money via an individual arbitration claim.

Having an arbitration lawyer personally representing your case generally leads to bigger results. Already, over a thousand ex-Merrill brokers have filed their FINRA claims.

Also, for an ex-Merrill broker whose deferred compensation was above six figures, they are likely to get much less by going the class action route. Neither can those that accepted bonuses and waived certain rights related to deferred compensation claims from Merrill after the deal with Bank of America.

Ex-dvisers that had an agreement with the Advisor Transition Program, however, would not be able to participate. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled that the Securities Litigation Uniform Standards Act does not bar the investor state law class action lawsuit that was filed by victims of R. The case is Roland v. The appeals court said that the state court securities lawsuits , which are claiming common law and statutory violations, could go forward because the alleged fraud is only tangentially related to the buying and selling of covered securities under SLUSA.

Four complaints are on appeal. In each case, investors submitted state court actions that charged a number of defendants with misleading them into using their individual retirement accounts to invest in Stanford International Bank-issued certificate of deposits that have since proved worthless.

The defendants had the lawsuits moved to the U. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, which found that SLUSA precluded the claims because of their connection to a covered security. Under SLUSA, state class actions claiming fraud related to the sale or purchase of a covered security are barred. The district court judge in Dallas had dismissed the cases because Stanford marketed the CDs as regulated and securities-backed and because certain investors had sold securities to finance their purchase of the CDs, this, placed the CD-related suits under SLUSA.

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