Investment Fraud Lawyer Blog

Bank of New York Mellon has been sued in separate civil lawsuits filed by the U.S. Department of Justice and the Attorney General of New York seeking damages in excess of $2 billion related to BNY’s alleged practice of fraudulently misleading and overcharging public pension funds, universities, and other clients for foreign exchange (FX) currency transactions. In essence, the complaints allege that BNY Mellon profited by giving its foreign exchange clients the worst exchange rates of the day, and even created fake trades.

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Many investors, both individuals and corporations, were misled by their brokers and harmed during the credit crisis. For various reasons, however, many such investors have not yet taken action to recover their losses. Some have delayed taking action in order to see whether the misconduct warranted legal action while others just put it off until a later time. Investors need to appreciate that time is running out on their claims, and they should act now or forever hold their peace.

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SEC Enforcement Chief Robert Khuzami recently stated that the SEC’s decision not to charge top executives of Wall Street banks with wrongdoing in cases involving structured products was appropriate, according to Suzanne Barlyn’s Wall Street Journal article entitled “SEC: Structured-Product Cases Haven’t Reached Top Bank Officers.” According to Mr. Khuzami, top executives were not involved in, and did not know about, the key decisions relating to structured product problems.

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Massachusetts may join California, Virginia and Florida in suing Bank of New York Mellon Corp. for allegedly overcharging the state's pensioners for foreign exchange trades, according to Carrick Mollenkamp’s Wall Street Journal article entitled “New Front Opens in Massachusetts for Forex Dispute.” Federal agencies are reportedly investigating.

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Defense-minded institutions that have long remained on the sidelines when defrauded have finally woken up and are jumping on the plaintiff-recovery bandwagon as they seek to protect themselves against a variety of wrongdoing, according to Vanessa O’Connell’s Wall Street Journal article entitled “Company Lawyers Sniff Out Revenue.” These actions include waves of claims against Wall Street financial institutions for fraud in the sale of mortgage backed securities, CDOs and related exotic investments.

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Bank of New York Mellon Corp. admits it did not act in its clients’ best interest in pricing foreign currency trades but says its clients are to blame because they knew or should have known what was going on, according to a Wall Street Journal article by Carrick Mollencamp and Tom McGinty entitled “Inside a Battle Over Forex.”

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Expecting licensed professionals who provide investment advice to act in their clients’ best interests “should be a basic tenet of the business,” but brokerage firms and their brokers don’t want that fiduciary yoke, says Karen Blumenthal in her InvestmentNews article, “When Your Adviser Can’t Be Trusted.” Moreover, they don’t want the public to know that they don’t want to be held to a fiduciary standard. So, while brokerage firms profess to be trusted advisers or like a member of a client’s family in their advertising, their lobbyists are working hard to persuade the SEC to weaken the “devil in the details” definition of the term “fiduciary” for purposes of governing brokers’ relationships with customers.

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If you are an investor who lost money in the financial crisis, your stockbroker or investment advisor may owe you money. There are a variety of legal claims that can be brought for investment malpractice, ranging from fraud and misrepresentation to making unsuitable investment recommendations. But there are also legal deadlines for bringing such claims, and time may be running out if you have not yet discussed your options with a lawyer who handles investor rights claims.

Continue reading "Victims of Investment Malpractice or Other Financial Misconduct During the Recent Financial Crisis May Be on the Verge of Losing Legal Rights" »

The new whistleblower program that pays big cash rewards for tips about investment fraud has already resulted in a large number of high quality tips to the SEC, according to a news story this week on CNBC. According to the report, the SEC expects to receive 30,000 tips this year—just one year after the program was created under the Dodd-Frank financial reform act. SEC Enforcement Director is quoted as saying “we’re gonna get information hopefully sooner on in the life cycle of a fraudulent scheme, so there’s less investor loss, less harm.” In addition to helping the feds detect fraud in the securities industry, however, the program promises to pay big financial rewards to the whistleblowers whom report it.

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Prosecutors have taken over whistleblower lawsuits against Bank of New York Mellon and State Street Corp. that accuse the banks of fraud in overcharging public pension funds by tens of millions of dollars for foreign-exchange transactions, according to a Reuters article edited by Lincoln Feast, entitled “Prosecutors widen currency probes: report.”

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