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Page 5 of 66

September 29, 2022

Barclays PLC and Barclays Bank PLC has agreed to pay $361 million following charges that they offered and sold an unprecedented $17.7 million in unregistered securities without setting up internal controls to track those transactions in real time.  The firms eventually self-reported to regulators and commenced a rescission offer.  SEC

Tagged in: Financial Institution Fraud,

September 28, 2022

Alabama-based Regions Bank, which operates thousands of branches and ATMs across 16 states, has been ordered to pay $50 million to the CFPB’s victims relief fund and refund at least $141 million to customers, after the CFPB found it charged surprise overdraft fees to customers told they had sufficient funds.  Leadership was also found to have known about the illegal practice long before it ended in 2021, but chose to wait until they could make up the revenue, which made up 17.7% of their non-interest income, in other ways.  CFPB

Tagged in: Financial Institution Fraud,

September 27, 2022

Fifteen broker-dealers and one affiliated investment advisor has been ordered to pay combined penalties of more than $1.1 billion following SEC charges of violating the recordkeeping provision of securities laws.  Barclays, Bank of America (including Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith), Citi, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and UBS each paid $125 million, while Jefferies and Nomura each paid $50 million and Cantor Fitzgerald paid $10 million, to settle charges of failing to prevent or preserve communications their employees made via messaging apps on their personal devices.  SEC

Tagged in: Financial Institution Fraud,

September 27, 2022

Eleven financial institutions—including Bank of America, Barclays, Cantor Fitzgerald, Citi, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, Jefferies, Morgan Stanley, Nomura, and UBS—have been ordered to pay over $710 million total for violating CFTC recordkeeping and supervision requirements.  Each institution was found to have failed to prevent their employees from communicating both internally and externally about firm business using informal means, such as texts, Whatsapp, and Signal, and failed to preserve those communications.  The individual payments ranged from $100 million (Bank of America) to $6 million (Cantor Fitzgerald), with the majority of institutions ordered to pay $75 million.  CFTC

Tagged in: Financial Institution Fraud,

September 12, 2022

Registered investment advisers Hudson Advisors L.P. and Lone Star Global Acquisitions Ltd. have agreed to a resolution totaling $79.7 million to resolve claims that the firms included $54.6 million of its owner’s anticipated U.S. tax liability in fees charged to the funds although by law, those tax liabilities were payable by the owner and the firms were not authorized to charge the tax liability as a component of fees without full and fair disclosure to the funds. The firms will pay an $11.2 million civil penalty and reimburse the affected funds $68.5 million, which includes interest on the undisclosed tax liability charges.  SEC

Tagged in: Financial and Investment Fraud, Misrepresentations, Regulatory Violations, Securities Fraud,

September 2, 2022

Swapnil Rege, SwapStar Capital LLC, and Reema Rege have been ordered to pay $5 million in disgorgement and pre-judgment interest for engaging in fraudulent solicitation and misappropriation, including on Swapnil’s part, engaging in trading despite an existing bar for prior violations, and on Reema’s part, receiving illegally-obtained profits she was not entitled to.  The orders resulted from parallel but separate enforcement actions by the CFTC and SEC, and included a permanent trading and registration ban against Swapnil.  CFTC; SEC

Tagged in: Financial and Investment Fraud, Fraud in CFTC-Regulated Markets, Regulatory Violations, Securities Fraud,

August 10, 2022

Angel Oak Capital Advisors and its portfolio manager Ashish Neghandi will pay $1.75 million and $75,000 respectively to settle charges of misleading investors via their $90 million securitization of home renovation loans. When delinquency rates on their “fix-and-flip” loans increased unexpectedly, rather than accelerating return payments to certain investors, as contractually required, defendants artificially reduced delinquency rates by diverting borrowers’ funds to pay down outstanding loan balances. SEC

Tagged in: Financial and Investment Fraud, Financial Institution Fraud, Misrepresentations, Regulatory Violations, Securities Fraud,

August 3, 2022

Surgalign Holdings, Inc.—formerly RTI Surgical Holdings, Inc.—and its former executives Brian Hutchison and Robert Jordheim will collectively pay over $2.25 million in civil penalties and disgorgement, for accelerating revenue in contravention of GAAP principles, and in violation of the ’33 Act, the ’34 Act, and SOX. Falling short of their sales targets, RTI shipped future orders ahead of schedule to “pull forward” revenue. This practice cannibalized future revenue streams, damaged important customer relationships, and kept investors in the dark as to the true financial condition of the company. RTI restated its public financial statements from 2014 through 2019 to correct errors caused by this practice. SEC, SEC

Tagged in: Accounting Fraud, Misrepresentations, Regulatory Violations,

August 2, 2022

Crown Bridge Partners, Soheil Ahdoot, and Sepas Ahdoot, will pay more than $9 million for operating as unregistered securities dealers, and are required to surrender all conversion rights, unexercised warrants, and cancel any shares acquired by converting notes or exercising related warrants resulting from their fraud. Over a 5-year period, from 2016 to 2020, the defendants bought convertible notes, converted them into billions of newly issued shares of heavily-discounted stock, and sold the new shares at significant profit, all while not being registered as dealers with the SEC, skirting regulatory oversight. Defendants are subject to a 5-year penny stock bar in addition to the monetary penalties. SEC

Tagged in: Financial and Investment Fraud, Regulatory Violations, Securities Fraud,

July 28, 2022

Jaeson Birnbaum, disbarred attorney and owner of now-bankrupt litigation finance firm, Cash4Cases, will spend 3 years in prison for defrauding investors, in addition to paying over $2.6 million in restitution, and forfeiting another $2.6 million in fraud proceeds. Birnbaum offered sham “Investor Security Agreements,” allowing investors to share in recoveries from lawsuits supposedly purchased by Cash4Cases. Birnbaum netted over $3 million in investors’ funds through his fraud, misappropriated client funds for personal use, and directed his employee to falsify the company’s books and records to show already-paid-out funds as still available to be pledged as collateral to new investors. USAO SDNY

Tagged in: Accounting Fraud, Criminal Proceedings, Financial and Investment Fraud, Ponzi Schemes, Regulatory Violations, Securities Fraud,

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