Blog
Big Banks Are Fined $4.25 Billion in Foreign Exchange Scandal Nov 20, 2014
On Wednesday, regulators in Britain, the United States and Switzerland fined a group of the world’s largest banks a combined $4.25 billion to settle civil inquiries accusing them of conspiring to manipulate the currency markets. The banks that settled with the Financial Conduct Authority of Britain and the Commodity Futures…
Commodity Futures Trading Commission Teams Up with SEC and FINRA to Combat Investor Fraud Nov 20, 2014
Top financial regulators are joining forces to offer investors a one-stop online location where they can research the background of financial advisers and learn about financial fraud. On Wednesday, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission launched CFTC SmartCheck, a website that educates financial consumers about ways they could get swindled. The…
Ex-Schwab Broker Barred for $1M Office Supply Heist Nov 19, 2014
FINRA has permanently barred a former Charles Schwab & Co. Inc. broker after he allegedly stole around $1 million in office equipment from his former firm. According to a letter of acceptance posted to FINRA’s disciplinary database, Jeffrey Grove, a financial consultant in the Melbourne, FL office, used the firm's…
DOJ Collects Almost $25 Billion in Fiscal 2014—Three Times The Total from 2013 Nov 19, 2014
The DOJ reported a total $24.7 billion in fiscal 2014 from fines and penalties in its major criminal and civil work, which the DOJ said on Wednesday was more than three times the previous fiscal year's total. Much of the money collected was a result of enforcement actions by the…
SEC Publishes 2014 Annual Report to Congress on the Dodd-Frank Whistleblower Program- Number of Cases Steadily Rising Nov 18, 2014
In an effort to provide more transparency around its Dodd-Frank Act whistleblower program, on Tuesday the SEC disclosed the most detailed study of its whistleblowers to date, including the nature of the frauds they reported and their relation to the companies they blew the whistle on. In its 2014 report…
Scalia and Thomas Seek Supreme Court Case Challenging SEC Deference Nov 11, 2014
On November 10, the U.S. Supreme Court denied certiorari to a hedge fund manager's request for review of an insider trading SEC Rule 10(b)(5) two year conviction. However, in a rare attached note, Justices Scalia and Thomas expressed a clear desire to grant cert and hear a case on the…
Rolling Stone: JP Morgan Chase Whistleblower Speaks Out About Biggest Case of White-Collar Crime in History Nov 10, 2014
In a recent Rolling Stone article The $9 Billion Witness: Meet JP Morgan Chase’s Worst Nightmare, whistleblower Alayne Fleischmann details what she calls “massive criminal securities fraud” in the bank’s 2006 mortgage operations, leading up to the financial crisis. Fleischmann provides personal knowledge that the firm made material misrepresentations about subprime…
Companies Hit With Bigger Penalties When Whistleblowers Involved Oct 28, 2014
According to a new study, firms pay 63% more for penalties when a whistleblower is involved in an enforcement action. The authors of the study looked at penalties for financial misrepresentation from the DOJ and SEC from 1978 to 2012 and controlled a number of characteristics that indicated the size…
DaVita to Pay $350 Million to Resolve Allegations of FCA Violations Oct 22, 2014
The DOJ announced today that DaVita Healthcare Partners, Inc., one of the leading dialysis services providers in the U.S., has agreed to pay $350 million to settle claims that it violated the False Claims Act by paying kickbacks to induce referral of patients to its dialysis clinics. Under the government’s…
SEC Hits Record Number of Enforcement Actions in Fiscal 2014 Oct 21, 2014
New investigative methods and innovative technology led to a banner year for SEC enforcement in 2014, with a record number of actions taken and fines levied, the agency reported Thursday. The SEC in fiscal 2014, which ended September 30, filed a record 755 enforcement actions and obtained orders totaling $4.16…