Regulatory Audits & Investigations

Jenice Malecki to Appear on Fox Business Channel

October 21, 2013 | Malecki Law Team

Jenice Malecki of Malecki Law will be appearing at 10:45 am on Varney & Co. on Fox Business on Tuesday, October 22, to discuss the proposed $13 billion J.P. Morgan Chase settlement.

Ms. Malecki will be discussing whether J.P. Morgan and others should be surprised that the firm is being subjected to penalties relating to conduct that occurred at Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual, which J.P. Morgan acquired during the recent financial crisis.

Ms. Malecki will speak on central issues at the heart of the present debate such as the role of the government in these two acquisitions, including what promises, if any, were made to J.P. Morgan by government officials, as well as the overall price paid for the two companies relative to their actual value.

Jenice Malecki to Appear on Fox Business News with Dennis Kneale

October 14, 2013 | Malecki Law Team

Jenice Malecki of Malecki Law will be appearing on Fox Business News at 12pm today, speaking with Dennis Kneale about whether or not banks, such as JP Morgan, should be getting amnesty from regulators.

In the fallout from the financial crisis, banks, such as JP Morgan have seen their legal fees related to defending complaints from both customers and the SEC, along with other regulators, rise substantially. JP Morgan shocked many in the marketplace when it recently revealed that its “litigation reserve” was $23 billion, and that it had paid out roughly $8 billion in recent settlements and judgments.

In light of this revelation, some have called for amnesty to be provided to large banks, in an effort to relieve them of these substantial legal burdens and jumpstart the markets by freeing up large reserves of capital.

Criminal Charges Filed Against SAC Capital Adisors

August 2, 2013 | Malecki Law Team

As has been widely reported, Criminal charges were filed against SAC Capital Advisors LP, with accusations that the hedge-fund firm is guilty of a decade long “scheme” of insider trading. In total, prosecutors charged SAC Capital and its business units with a total of four counts of securities fraud and one count of wire fraud. The charges come after a multiyear investigation by the FBI, prosecutors, and the SEC. The government is also accusing former SAC portfolio manager, Richard Lee, of conspiracy to commit securities fraud. The indictment comes only a short time after SAC agreed to a $616 million settlement of insider-trading charges.

Civilly, prosecutors are looking to have SAC and any of its affiliated corporate entities surrender all of their assets. SAC manages some $14 billion in assets, a majority of which does not come from outside investors.

In a separate civil action, the SEC is seeking a lifetime ban for Steven A. Cohen, who started SAC twenty-one years ago with roughly $20 million of personal funds, from managing client money. Mr. Cohen has not been charged criminally but denies any allegation of wrongdoing. Before the financial crisis of 2008, SAC held over $16 billion in assets and reportedly charged some of the highest fees in the business – 3% annually on the total investment, plus as much as 50% of whatever profits the firm generates.

LPL Reportedly Under Fire From State Regulators

April 1, 2013 | Malecki Law Team

The broker-dealer LPL, Linsco Private Ledger, has been in the news a lot recently – for all the wrong reasons. LPL was even recently featured in The New York Times for its frequent “tangles” with state and federal regulators.

LPL is the nation’s fourth largest brokerage firm, with more than 13,000 brokers who currently service over 4 million customers. LPL attracts brokers from other brokerage firms by reportedly paying a higher percentage of the commissions generated directly to the broker – roughly 80% at LPL versus as low as 15-25% elsewhere. While this model can be very lucrative for well-minded brokers, this model can also attract deceitful brokers who do not have their clients’ best interests in mind and seek to skirt the law.

LPL’s network of brokers is very spread out by brokerage firm standards, with many brokers operating out of an office of only one or two individuals – versus other brokerage firms which may have up to several hundred brokers under one roof.

Jenice Malecki to Appear Tonight on The Willis Report on Fox Business

March 26, 2013 | Malecki Law Team

Jenice Malecki of Malecki Law will be appearing on Fox Business News tonight, March 26, 2013 between 6pm and 7pm.

Ms. Malecki will be appearing on The Willis Report to discuss the recent Rasmussen Reports that indicate 50 percent of Americans want the government to break up the country’s big banks. The report also found that only 23 percent of Americans oppose such a breakup, with 27 percent remaining undecided.

Critics have said that the size of several US banks are a threat to the country’s economy. This notion became widely known during the recent recession as “Too Big To Fail.” The US Attorney General recently made a shocking revelation that some banks are even too large to even prosecute effectively.

Jenice Malecki to Appear on Fox Business News on March 21, 2013 at 5pm – Topic: SEC Digging Into Fund Fees

March 20, 2013 | Malecki Law Team

Jenice Malecki of Malecki Law will be appearing on Fox Business News tomorrow, March 21, 2013, at 5pm.

If you have suffered losses in an investment with a hedge fund or other financial adviser, it is your right to consult with an attorney to explore your rights. Contact the securities lawyers at Malecki Law for a free consultation.

Regulators Consider High-Frequency Trading as Potentially Wash Sale Transactions

March 20, 2013 | Malecki Law Team

The Wall Street Journal reported on March 18, 2013 that U.S. Regulators, including the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) are reviewing trading of high-frequency firms to determine if they are engaging in prohibited transactions, such as “wash” trades. The Article stated that the Regulators are reviewing records of primarily two exchanges, the CME Group, where the majority of wash trades have occurred, and the InterncontinentalExchange, Inc.

The Article identified that regulators are concerned that the exchanges do not have appropriate systems in place to identify or stop wash trades, especially in light of recent technical glitches leading to pronounced losses, including the Knight Capital Group and Facebook debacles in 2012.

Wash trades are when the same party places bids and asks for the same security, which causes there to appear increased activity in the security, which may affect its value, causing gains or losses to other investors who may be legitimately interested. In this way, a market participant manipulates the price of the security, prompting other participants to enter the market.

FINRA Fines Ameriprise and its Clearing Firm $750,000 For Failing to Supervise Jennifer Guelinas

March 19, 2013 | Malecki Law Team

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, (FINRA) issued a news release on March 4, 2013 announcing that it had fined Ameriprise Financing Services, Inc. and its affiliated clearing form American Enterprise Investment Services, Inc. $750,000 for failing to have reasonable supervisory systems in place to monitor wire transfer requests. In the News Release, FINRA disclosed that its investigation was related to Ameriprise’s former registered representative Jennifer Guelinas, who apparently converted approximately $790,000 over four years from two of her clients by forging wire requests that paid in to accounts she controlled.

According to the News Release, Ameriprise failed to detect several “red flags,” including that Ms. Guelinas submitted forged wire requests from a customer’s account to an account that appeared to be under her control. FINRA further disclosed that on at least three occasions where Ameriprise initially rejected wire requests, they were then accepted on either the same day or another day after simply being resubmitted by Ms. Guelinas. The News Release stated that Ameriprise also accepted one request after it had begun to investigate Ms. Guelinas, and accepted another wire transfer request that was submitted by Guelinas after she was terminated, though the firm recognized its mistake in time before the money was accessed.

FINRA Rules require that securities firms have and enforce reasonable supervisory procedures in place to monitor each registered representative’s conduct to ensure that they are acting in compliance with securities laws. According to the News Release, Ameriprise did not have adequate reasonable supervisory procedures in place. The FINRA News Release stated that Ameriprise had already paid full restitution to the two customers for losses in their accounts.

Jenice Malecki of Malecki Law To Appear On On The American Radio News Afternoon Drive Show With Ernie & Rachel to Discuss The SEC’s Current Investigation of Chesapeake Energy’s Aubrey McClendon

March 1, 2013 | Malecki Law Team

Jenice Malecki of Malecki Law will be appearing on the American Radio News Afternoon Drive Show with Ernie & Rachel tonight at 5:15pm est to discuss the current SEC investigation of Aubrey McClendon, Cheseapeake Energy‘s CEO.

Central to the investigation is a controversial program within the company that grants McClendon a share in every well drilled by Chesapeake, so long as he pays his share of the cost. Since the program began, Mr. McClendon has taken out hundreds of millions of dollars in personal loans from companies that invest in Chesapeake. This move did not sit well with shareholders.

Ms. Malecki will discuss how given McClendon’s position at the publicly-traded company, the question of what was disclosed to investors, when it was disclosed, and whether there were actual conflicts of interest that disadvantaged investors, especially, whether these deals were priced to the company’s advantage or disadvantage is at the heart of the current situation. If the allegations are correct, and all required information was not disclosed to investors and conflicts of interest were present, this is a fraud, plain and simple.

A Raft of Risks: Assessing FINRA’s New Alert on Exchange Traded Notes

August 20, 2012 | Nick Curley

Headline news charting the dramatic peaks and valleys of select Credit Suisse and Barclays properties prompted the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority Inc. (FINRA) to issue a July warning to investors detailing the potential risks inherent to exchange-traded notes (or ETNs). The investor alert, entitled “Exchange Traded Notes – Avoid Unpleasant Surprises“, details vital notices to consumers on the nature of such properties.

“ETNs are complex products and can carry a raft of risks,” said Gerri Walsh, FINRA’s Vice President of Investor Education in a July 15th statement to Investment News. “Investors considering ETNs should only invest if they are confident the ETN can help them meet their investment objectives, and they fully understand and are comfortable with the risks.” Unfortunately, all too often these risks can be hidden from investors by their financial advisor.

Many investors may believe that ETNs are just like exchange-traded funds (or ETFs). However, despite their similar naming and being commonly categorized together, ETNs are quite different than ETFs. ETFs can be essentially characterized as a grouping of bonds or stocks that trade within the same day on an exchange. ETNs meanwhile, do not in fact hold anything, but rather are bank-drafted promissory notes intended to deliver the returns of an index. Unlike an ETF, an ETN in many respects is an uncollateralized loan to a bank, albeit one that offers theoretically great rewards to an index’s return. The value of an ETN is largely dependent on the given day’s market value of the index it tracks.