Securities Fraud Lawyers Blog

Bad Week for Big Banks Some of the nation’s top banks are facing another bad week, legally and financially as they are subjected to increased scrutiny and demand for reparations from federal regulators. Wells Fargo faces a continued inquest into the extent of its accounts fraud scandal as regional and municipal governments, including Hillsborough County,…

The Cause Big banks on Wall Street had been left unchecked for too long and the introduction of sub-prime lending tactics sealed the fate of U.S. financial stability. A culture of smoke-and-mirrors misleading consumers, coupled with a dire lack of regulatory oversight allowed big banks to run rampant. Years of bad banking tactics caught up…

Low Interest Rates Remain The Federal Reserve has decided to leave interest rates alone for the foreseeable future, according to a report from Reuters. Despite the fact that a target rate-hike was announced last December, the Fed has deferred any increases as part of a long-term plan to reignite the U.S. economy. President of the…

Investment planning. The thought sends shivers down the spines of many an investor. In fact, many don’t even want to think about it and will gladly pay someone else to do that for them. However, taking a hands-on approach to your investments provides an extra surety against incurring extensive losses in the event that an…

This is an update to a previously posted article – “Wells Fargo Pays Out $190 in Financial Fraud Claim”. Read the full story here. In the wake of the massive fraud scandal stemming from a sales incentives initiative, Wells Fargo as announced that it is ending the company-wide sales product goals. The banking giant, ordered…

Raymond James & Associates along with a Milwaukee-based investment firm, Robert W. Baird & Co. reached a settlement over penalties regarding wrap fee compliance with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) last week. The SEC had charged the long established St. Petersburg, FL-based investment firm with violating Section 206(4) of the Investment Advisers Act of…

Last week, banking giant, Wells Fargo, agreed to a settlement with federal and state prosecutors in a California court to pay $185 million in penalties and $5 million in damages to affected customers following a wide-spread financial fraud scandal. In May of last year, it was alleged that Wells Fargo had assigned fee-generating savings and…

Yesterday, in a case of investment fraud, the S.E.C. formally charged two former accounting executives with falsifying the financial performance of a real estate investment trust. It is alleged that the former executives of VEREIT Inc., then known as American Realty Capital Properties (ARCP), purposefully and knowingly overstated quarterly earnings by inflating figures in a…

Jordan Belfort may have bestowed the title ‘Wolf of Wall Street’ on himself, but we all know that wolves travel in packs – and it looks like Wall Street is full of them. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) a financial watch-dog group has recently released a database outlining complaints against several of the nation’s…

It seems that mosquitoes aren’t the only thing people will have to watch out for on the Zika front. As with any public crisis, the outbreak of the Zika virus has come with the threat of investment fraud in tow. Crooks and scam artists exploit crises like this one by preying on public anxieties. This…