Financial and Investment Fraud

May 19, 2021

An anonymous whistleblower has received an award of $28 million, representing a share of recoveries by the SEC and by another federal government agency in a related action.  The Commission's order states that the involved company reported wrongful conduct in one geographic region, and the whistleblower voluntary submitted information to the SEC regarding similar improprieties by the company in a different country.  SEC

May 17, 2021

Index provider S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC, which publishes the S&P 500 VIX Short Term Futures Index ER, will pay a $9 million penalty to resolve claims that inadequate quality control procedures, including an undisclosed “auto-hold” feature triggered by a VIX spike, caused it publish and disseminate stale index values during a period of unprecedented volatility.  As a result of the stale information, issuers who used the index to offer securities reported incorrect values.  SEC

May 17, 2021

The SEC made an award of $750,000 to one whistleblower and $3.75 million to a second whistleblower based on findings that they provided information that assisted SEC staff in related civil and criminal proceedings against a company and individual.  The first individual provided information relevant to the action against the individual only, but did so more than five years after learning of the violation.  The second individual, who received a larger award, was originally denied any award by the SEC, but, upon reconsideration, the SEC concluded that they had voluntarily provided information to the Commission prior to being contacted by the Commission.  Three other claimants were denied awards.  SEC

May 17, 2021

Two whistleblowers were awarded a total of $27 million, with the SEC finding that the information they jointly and voluntarily provided aided an enforcement action which resulted in the return of millions of dollars to harmed investors, even through most of the information the individuals provided was already known the SEC from other sources. The two individuals had also reported their concerns internally and met in-person with SEC staff over the course of two days. SEC

May 14, 2021

A consent order was entered against Leonard Cipolla, who fraudulently solicited individuals for a commodity pool operated by his company Tate Street Trading.  Cipolla received over $7 million from pool participants and misappropriated more than $5 million of it.  The order requires Cipolla to pay restitution of $5.1 million.  CFTC  (see criminal sentencing)

May 13, 2021

Financial services company State Street Corporation will pay a $115 million criminal penalty and enter into a deferred prosecution agreement following its voluntary disclosure to authorities that, over the course of 17 years, the bank defrauded its clients out of $290 million.  State Street  admitted that it secretly marked up “out-of-pocket” (OOP) expenses charged to clients, despite telling clients that OOP expenses were passed through without markups. State Street executives took steps to conceal the mark-ups from clients, including by misleading clients when they inquired about what they were being charged for OOP expenses. As part of the settlement, defendant agreed to cooperate with ongoing investigations, to enhance its compliance program, and to retain an independent corporate compliance monitor for a period of two years. DOJ

May 12, 2021

Registered broker-dealer GWFS Equities Inc. will pay a penalty of $1.5 million to settle allegations that it failed to respond appropriately when it detected external bad actors gaining, or attempting to gain, access to the retirement accounts of participants in the employer-sponsored retirement plans it serviced, including through the use of improperly obtained electronic login information, user names, email addresses, and passwords. There was no allegation that this personal identifying information was disclosed in a breach of GWFS systems. However, the bad actors used this information to request distributions from plan participant accounts. While GWFS detected and blocked many of these attempts, the SEC charged that GWFS failed to file suspicious activity reports, or filed incomplete SARs, with respect to the account takeovers. SEC

May 12, 2021

The SEC made a whistleblower award of $3.6 million to an individual who provided new information that resulted in the opening of an SEC investigation directly based on that information, and provided ongoing assistance to the Commission during the course of the investigation.  At the same time, the SEC denied a whistleblower award to a second individual who submitted information regarding the company in the same covered action, finding that the information provided by the second claimant did not significantly contribute to the success of the Covered Action.  SEC