Investment Fraud Lawyer Blog

Some judges are starting to question lenient settlement deals proffered by Wall Street firms and their arguably captive regulator, the SEC, according to an August 19, 2010 article in the Wall Street Journal by David Weidner called “In Search Of Justice for Wall (Street).” Two U.S. District Court Judges, Jed S. Rakoff and Ellen Segal Huvelle, have rejected settlements on the ground that the penalties were too small to be fair to the investing public. Another federal judge, Emmet G. Sullivan, threatened to reject but ultimately accepted a settlement proposed by the SEC and Barclays PLC. Judge Sullivan reportedly had earlier called it a "sweetheart deal."

Continue reading "Judges Begin to Question "Sweetheart" Securities Regulatory Settlements" »

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) is investigating possible sales practice violations (e.g., misrepresentations and omissions) by Morgan Stanley, Barclays, and Credit Suisse in pitching collateralized debt obligation securities (CDOs) to institutional investors, according to a July 23, 2010 Reuters article by Steve Eder and Leslie Gevirtz, “FINRA probes M Stanley, Barclays, Credit Suisse.”

Continue reading "FINRA Investigates CDO Sales Practice Abuses by Morgan Stanley, Barclays and Credit Suisse" »

White House executive “pay czar” Kenneth Feinberg has decided not to negotiate with 17 Wall Street firms to rescind $1.6 billion in payments to executive that Feinberg himself described as “ill advised” and payments that “[t]hey should not have made,” according to articles in the Atlanta Journal Constitution (“Bank execs get to l]keep $1.6 billion” by Daniel Wagner) and CNNMoney (“Banks paid big $ to execs during crisis” by David Ellis).

Continue reading "Wall Street Executives Get $1.6 Billion, Main Street America Picks Up the Tab" »

Goldman, Sachs & Co. has agreed to pay $550 million and reform its business practices to settle SEC charges that it misled investors in a subprime mortgage CDO known as ABACUS 2007-AC1, which collapsed, according to multiple articles in the Wall Street Journal, CNBC.com, and others. In so doing, Goldman admitted it made a “mistake” in failing to disclose the fact that the CDO’s investments were selected in part by a hedge fund manager who was betting on the CDO to fail. The SEC had charged Goldman and its vice president, Fabrice Tourre, with fraud. At this time, the SEC's litigation will continue against Tourre.

Continue reading "Is Goldman Getting Off Too Easy in its SEC Settlement?" »

The sale of billion of dollars of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac preferred stock in 2007 and 2008 was accomplished by fraud on unsuspecting public investors and the complicity of mortgage originators that bought the shares knowing they were poison, according to attorney and professor Seth E. Lipner in his July 7th Forbes article entitled “How Fannie And Freddie Unloaded Their Trash.”

Continue reading "Wall Street's Dump of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae Preferred Stocks Cost Investors Billions" »

The Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating the sale of $200 million in collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) to several Wisconsin school districts, according to a recent Wall Street Journal article by Meena Thiruvengadam and Kelly Nolan (“SEC Investigates Failed CDOs Sold to Wisconsin Schools”). The schools have also filed a lawsuit alleging that the CDOs were misrepresented and that important risk disclosures were omitted.

Continue reading "Wall Street's Sale of Toxic CDOs Undermines Education and Other Government Services" »

According to a recent New York Times article by Gretchen Morgenson and Louise Story titled “Documents Show Goldman Pressure on A.I.G,” Goldman Sachs made a huge bet against AIG in 2008 by purchasing $3 billion of credit default swaps insuring against a possible default by AIG, at the very same time that Goldman was driving AIG to default on its obligations by aggressively demanding cash collateral from AIG pursuant to credit default swaps insuring risky pools of subprime mortgages that Goldman had purchased from AIG.

Continue reading "Goldman Faces Allegations that It Pushed A.I.G. Over the Cliff" »

It’s crunch time for financial reform, and Wall Street banks are lobbying hard to keep a central pillar of financial reform from becoming law, and, at the same time, are planning ways of getting around whatever financial reform restrictions do become law, according to a recent New York Times article by Eric Dash and Nelson D. Schwart titled “Banking Lobbyists Make a Run at Reform Measures.”

Continue reading "Wall Street Intensifies Efforts to Thwart Financial Reform as Greed Trumps Common Sense" »

Merrill Lynch and other Wall Street firms sold the riskiest tranches of collateralized debt obligations (“CDOs”), not just to institutions, but to individual investors, as safe investments, according to a recent Wall Street Journal article by Dan Fitzgerald titled “Didn’t See Risk, and Got Stung.” Now that the CDOs have imploded, and investors are seeking recovery of their losses, Merrill is telling them that risk disclosure documents and the investors’ supposed sophistication mean they cannot recover. Merrill is wrong for a number of reasons.

Continue reading "Wealthy Individuals Have Been Victimized By Wall Street's CDO Fraud" »

According to a recent article in the Atlanta Journal Constitution, “at least a dozen local governments and other institutions that used derivative deals called swaps to try to lower the cost of bond issues have ended up owing as much as $394 million in fees to the Wall Street investment banks that set up the deals….” AJC, 5/30/10, “Paying a Price for Risky Schemes.” That article looked at how much money a small number of governmental and institutional investors in Georgia have paid to buy their way out of interest rate swaps in the wake of the financial crisis, but it is likely that this is a nationwide phenomenon. The article raised a number of questions—including whether it was appropriate for taxpayer money to be invested in securities with such a high level of risk—but it did not raise the question of whether there are legal remedies that would allow government officials and others to recover the financial losses resulting from such investments.

Continue reading "Local Governments and Non-Profits Have Suffered Catastrophic Losses as a Result of Wall Street's Excesses" »

Bloomberg.com has reported that Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s $2 billion Hudson Mezzanine collateralized debt obligation, sold in 2006, is now the target of a probe by the SEC.

Continue reading "SEC Expands Investigation of Goldman Sachs CDO Abuses" »

The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, a bipartisan commission that was appointed by Congress to investigate and report on the causes of the financial crisis, reported that Goldman Sachs tried to conceal information and obstruct its investigation into the causes of the crisis, according to USA Today’s David Lieberman in his June 8 article, “Goldman accused of trying to thwart probe.”

Continue reading "What Is Goldman Sachs Trying To Hide?" »

In “Paying a price for risky schemes,” Atlanta Journal Constitution reporter Russell Grantham presents an excellent overview of how at least a dozen metro governments and nonprofits that issued debt were whipsawed by the “shadow banking system” – the freezing of the auction rate securities markets and complex derivative contracts called swaps. As a result, they have been forced to pay or owe as much as $394 million that they did not expect to, according to the article, which identifies the borrowers as:

“Atlanta airport, Atlanta water/sewer, Underground Atlanta, Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, Piedmont Healthcare, Woodruff Arts Center, Georgia Tech, Georgia State University, DeKalb Medical Center, Emory University, Gwinnett Medical Center, Marietta, MARTA, Power South Energy Cooperative, and Cobb County Kennestone Hospital Authority. “

Continue reading "Wall Street Abuses Have Significantly Increased the Economic Problems Currently Faced by State and Local Governments" »

The answer appears to be a resounding yes. The SEC's recently filed a lawsuit against Goldman Sachs alleging fraud in the sale of mortgage-backed collateralized debt obligations (CDOs). CDOs are a structured finance product in which a large number of mortgages or other debt instruments are pooled in a trust and divided into multiple layers or “tranches” that pay interest to investors based on the risk and priority of each tranche, with the senior tranches paying lower rates because they are safer investments and the junior tranches paying higher returns for comparatively higher risk debt. The SEC alleges that Goldman Sachs created CDOs backed by high-risk subprime mortgages and then took short positions betting that they would fail while simultaneously recommending that some of their customers buy the securities. In other words, some customers were sold CDO securities and told that they were a good long-term investment, while Goldman and other customers shorted them because they were expected to go down in value. If that is true, many investors were defrauded, and they too should have the right to sue or bring an arbitration claim—especially since the SEC action has not requested restitution or recision for investors.

Continue reading "Were Toxic CDO Investments Deliberately Dumped on Unsuspecting Investors?" »

HighTower Advisors LLC, a high-profile, high-pedigree investment advisory firm, has been dogged by a series of investor and business lawsuits that could threaten its distinguished reputation, according to a recent article by Bruce Kelly in InvestmentNews.

Continue reading "Is HighTower Advisors All That It Claims To Be?" »

Bloomberg is reporting that Goldman Sachs has broken off negotiations with the law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP and says it does not plan to engage another law firm to defend it in the pending action by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Bloomberg reportedly confirmed this decision with Goldman spokesman Lucas van Praag.

Continue reading "Is Goldman Posturing to Settle the SEC's CDO Fraud Claims" »

“As the U.S. Senate prepares to vote as early as this week on legislation rewriting the rules for Wall Street, the financial industry is holding fundraisers for lawmakers at a rate of almost one every business day this month,” according to a May 17th Bloomberg article by Jonathan D. Salant.

Continue reading "Wall Street Special Interest Groups Are Spending Huge Sums to Thwart Financial Reform" »

Federal prosecutors are conducting a criminal probe into whether multiple major Wall Street banks defrauded investors in selling investments called collateralized debt obligations, or CDOs, that were created, sold and shorted, or bet against, by the banks and certain favored clients. See “Wall Street Probe Widens,” by Susan Pulliam, Kara Scannell, Aaron Lucchetti and Serena Ng, Wall Street Journal, May 12, 2010, and “Wall Street said to face new investigations,” CNNMoney.com, May 13, 2010.

Continue reading "CDO Fraud Probes Explode Across Wall Street" »

Federal prosecutors are assessing whether Morgan Stanley defrauded investors in mortgage-derivatives collateralized debt obligations (“CDOs”) that it helped create and then bet against, according to reports in the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg. The Securities and Exchange Commission is also investigating. Several rounds of subpoenas have reportedly been issued. Investigators are evaluating whether Morgan Stanley, like others, misrepresented their true roles and conflicting interests in CDO deals sold to investors.

Continue reading "Federal Prosecutors Target Morgan Stanley in CDO Fraud Investigation" »

Just days after the announcement of a federal criminal probe, Goldman Sachs is exploring a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission (“Goldman Talks Settlement With SEC,” by Susan Pulliam and Susanne Craig, May 7, 2010, Wall Street Journal). According to the WSJ, this signals a scaling back of Goldman’s initially combative response to the SEC charges and unsettled shareholders.

Continue reading "Goldman Sachs and SEC Reportedly Talk Settlement" »