Blog

Our experts frequently write blog posts about the findings of the research we are conducting.

English Spanish

Displaying 21-30 out of 233 results for "Puerto Ricof=Litigation Summary".

Enforcement Actions: Week in Review - April 8th, 2016

(Apr 2016)

SEC ENFORCEMENT ACTIONS

SEC Charges Four in Fraudulent "Free Dinner" Scheme
April 4, 2016 (Litigation Release No. 63)
Joseph Andrew Paul, John D. Ellis, Jr., James S. Quay and Donald H. Ellison were charged for embezzling money from victims by soliciting a "free dinner" scheme, splitting the victims' money amongst themselves instead of on investments they proclaimed had high returns. Quay has previous convictions of fraud, and both Quay and Ellison have questionable registrations as...

Enforcement Actions: Week in Review - April 1st, 2016

(Apr 2016)

SEC ENFORCEMENT ACTIONS

Securities Professional Charged With Defrauding Institutional Investors
March 28, 2016 (Litigation Release No. 58)
The SEC has charged Andrew W.W. Caspersen for embezzling approximately $95 million from two institutions. Caspersen deceived and offered promissory notes issued by Irving Place II SPV LLC, a name deceptively similar to a legitimate private equity fund Irving Place Capital Partners III SPV that is in no way associated with Caspersen. The U.S. Attorney's...

Enforcement Actions: Week in Review - March 18th, 2016

(Mar 2016)

SEC ENFORCEMENT ACTIONS

SEC Approves 2016 PCAOB Budget and Accounting Support Fee
March 14, 2016 (Litigation Release No. 51)
The SEC approved the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) annual budget and accounting support fee for 2016 which is a task that SEC is required to do annually according to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 was established in efforts of the SEC to oversee and approve the PCAOB's accounting support fee and budget which funds its...

Enforcement Actions: Week in Review - January 15th, 2016

(Jan 2016)

SEC ENFORCEMENT ACTIONS

SEC Announces 2016 Examination Priorities
January 11, 2016 (Litigation Release No. 4)
The SEC has announced its new 2016 priorities for its Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations. The new priorities center around liquidity controls, public pension advisers, product promotion, exchange-traded funds, and variable annuities.

Julie M. Riewe, Co-Chief of Asset Management Unit, to Leave SEC After 10 Years of Service
January 11, 2016 (Litigation Release No. 5)...

Nicholas Schorsch Cheated Investors in Recent Nontraded REIT Mergers

(Dec 2015)

Roll-ups

Recently we posted More Non-traded REIT Perfidy: The Roll-up Grift.

To re-cap: Non-traded REITs are required by state securities regulators to include language in their bylaws which closely tracks the 2007 North American Securities Administrators Association's Statement of Policy Regarding Real Estate Investment Trusts.¹

NASAA guidelines protect shareholders in REITs which have not been trading for at least 12 months before being rolled-up. The protections include the requirement...

More Non-traded REIT Perfidy: The Roll-up Grift

(Nov 2015)

We have extensively researched non-traded REITs and concluded that these illiquid direct participation programs have cost investors $50 billion compared to more liquid investments in traded REITs. Our Fiduciary Duties and Non-traded REITs provides a good overview of the problems with non-traded REITs and a summary of our empirical results. An Empirical Analysis of Non-Traded REITs contains a more detailed explanation of our research. See our previous blog posts on individual non-traded...

Only a Faulty Auto-liquidator Pays More for An Option Than it Can Ever Be Worth

(Nov 2015)

In two previous blog posts we documented how auto-liquidators appear to have executed option trades at distorted prices to their clients' detriment on August 24, 2015. The price distortions were caused by massive sell or buy orders on thinly traded securities being dumped into the market by auto-liquidation programs. These distortions were reversed within minutes, but not before causing investors millions of dollars of unnecessary losses.

In "The Recent Market Turmoil Spells Trouble for...

UBS Puerto Rico Still Can't Shoot Straight

(Oct 2015)

We've written extensively about the investment carnage caused by UBS Puerto Rico's management and sales of closed end municipal bonds funds. A summary of our findings can be found here: UBS Puerto Rico's Bond Fund Debacle: What We Know So Far .

Others will have to decide whether UBS was just incompetent or also wolfishly indifferent to Puerto Rico investors but recent evidence demonstrates that UBS Asset Managers of Puerto Rico continues to be, at least, incompetent.

The fourteen closed end...

Pension Purchase Agreements; The worst "investment" in the world?

(Oct 2015)

In recent years, platforms for buying and selling pension benefit payments have been created and gained traction. Voyager Financial Group (VFG) operated one of the largest and most active exchanges for buying and selling pension payments. There is limited information available on the size of this market because these firms have operated under the radar of securities regulators.

In pension benefit agreements, a pensioner agrees to turn over a specific number of their future pension benefit...

Enforcement Actions: Week in Review - September 21st, 2015

(Sep 2015)

SEC ENFORCEMENT ACTIONS

SEC Obtains $30 Million from Traders who Profited on Hacked News Releases
September 14, 2015 (Litigation Release No. 191)
Ukrainian-based firm Jaspen Capital Partners and their CEO Andriy Supranonok have agreed to settle charges that they profited off of hacked, nonpublic information. The SEC have charged 34 people in a scheme that allegedly hacked into newswire services and transmitted the stolen data to international traders. The traders allegedly generated over...

233 Results

<
1
2
3
4
5
...
24
>