Financial and Investment Fraud

January 13, 2017

Morgan Stanley Smith Barney will pay a $13 million penalty to settle charges that it overbilled more than 149,000 investment advisory clients due to billing system errors.  According to the SEC’s order, Morgan Stanley received more than $16 million in excess fees between 2002 and 2016 due to more than 36 types of billing errors.  Morgan Stanley has reimbursed the full amount plus interest to affected clients.  The SEC’s order also found that Morgan Stanley failed to comply with the annual surprise custody examination requirements for two consecutive years when it did not provide its independent public accountant with an accurate or complete list of client funds and securities for examination.  SEC

January 13, 2017

Citadel Securities LLC will pay $22.6 million to settle charges that its business unit handling retail customer orders from other brokerage firms made misleading statements about the way it priced trades.  The SEC’s order finds that Citadel Execution Services suggested to its broker-dealer clients that upon receiving retail orders forwarded from their own customers, it either took the other side of the trade and provided the best price that it observed on various market data feeds (“internalization”), or sought to obtain that price in the marketplace.  Rather, the SEC’s order finds that two algorithms used by Citadel did not internalize retail orders at the best price observed nor sought to obtain the best price in the marketplace.   One strategy, known as “FastFill,” immediately internalized orders at prices that were not the best price Citadel observed.  The other, known as “SmartProvide,” routed orders to market such that they were not priced to immediately obtain the best price observed.  SEC

January 31, 2017

All 50 states and the District of Columbia announced a joint settlement with Colorado-based The Western Union Company, resolving a multistate investigation which focused on complaints of consumers who used Western Union’s wire transfer service to send money to third parties involved in schemes to defraud consumers. The settlement requires Western Union to develop and put into action a comprehensive anti-fraud program designed to help detect and prevent incidents where consumers who have been the victims of fraud use Western Union to wire money to scam artists. Western Union also has agreed to pay a total of $5 million to the states for the states’ costs and fees. In addition to this settlement with the states, Western Union also settled claims related to fraud-induced transfers with the Federal Trade Commission and U.S. Department of Justice, as announced on January 19, 2017. As part of those related settlements, Western Union has agreed to pay $586M to a fund that the Department of Justice will administer to provide refunds to victims of fraud induced wire transfers nationwide. NY, FL, MA, OH, PA

January 30, 2017

Florida announced a $1.5 million life claim settlement agreement reached with subsidiaries of the Ameriprise Group, RiverSource Life Insurance Company and RiverSource Life Insurance Company of New York. The settlement agreement focuses on the one-sided use of the Social Security Administration’s Death Master File to stop paying a deceased person’s annuity, but not using the same information to find and begin paying the deceased’s family or other beneficiaries for life insurance policies. Florida, California, New Hampshire, North Dakota and Pennsylvania conducted the examination into the companies that led to this agreement. Florida’s allocation of the multi-state settlement payment by Ameriprise is more than $111,000, which covers the costs of the investigations and future compliance monitoring. To date, state insurance regulators have either reached settlements or concluded the investigation of 28 of the top 40 companies constituting 80 percent of the total market. Efforts continue to be focused on the examination of the remaining 12 insurers. FL

January 30, 2017

The CFPB took action against a group of law firms and attorneys that worked together to charge illegal fees to consumers seeking debt relief. The complaint alleges Howard Law, P.C., the Williamson Law Firm, LLC, and Williamson & Howard, LLP, attorneys Vincent Howard and Lawrence Williamson, and Morgan Drexen, Inc. ran this debt relief operation. CFPB

January 24, 2017

Florida and the Federal Trade Commission announced a settlement with several related debt relief and credit repair services companies and their principal. The settlement resolves allegations that Chastity Valdes and her companies, Consumer Assistance LLC, Consumer Assistance Project Corp. and Palermo Global LLC, engaged in unlawful debt relief operations targeting student loan holders. Among other things, the settlement bans the defendants from operating in the debt relief and credit repair industries. In 2016, Attorney General Bondi’s Office and the FTC filed a joint lawsuit against Valdes and her companies, alleging the defendants took illegal up-front fees in return for their purported debt relief and credit repair services. According to the complaint, the defendants allegedly falsely claimed these services reduced consumers’ student loan debt and repaired consumers’ credit. The complaint also asserted violations of the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act, the FTC Act, the Telemarketing Sales Rule and the Credit Repair Organizations Act. As part of the settlement, the defendants are banned from selling debt relief and credit repair services and prohibited from making material misrepresentations about any products or services. The order also imposes a judgment of more than $2.3 million, which will be suspended upon the surrender of virtually all of the defendants’ assets. FL

January 23, 2017

The CFPB took separate actions against CitiFinancial Servicing and CitiMortgage, Inc. for creating obstacles for struggling homeowners seeking options to save their homes. The mortgage servicers kept borrowers in the dark about options to avoid foreclosure or burdened them with excessive paperwork demands in applying for foreclosure relief. CitiMortgage has been ordered to pay an estimated $17 million in compensation and another $3 million in civil penalties. CitiFinancial Services is to refund approximately $4.4 million to consumers, and pay a civil penalty of $4.4 million. CFPB

January 23, 2017

The Securities and Exchange Commission announced an award of more than $7 million split among three whistleblowers who helped the SEC prosecute an investment scheme.  One whistleblower provided information that was a primary impetus for the start of the SEC’s investigation.  That whistleblower will receive more than $4 million.  Two other whistleblowers jointly provided new information during the SEC’s investigation that significantly contributed to the success of the SEC’s enforcement action.  Those two whistleblowers will split more than $3 million.  SEC

January 12, 2016

BNY Mellon will pay a $6.6 million penalty to settle charges stemming from miscalculations of its risk-based capital ratios and risk-weighted assets reported to investors. An SEC investigation found that BNY Mellon deviated from regulatory capital rules by excluding from its calculations approximately $14 billion in collateralized loan obligation assets that the firm consolidated onto its balance sheet in 2010. BNY Mellon never obtained Federal Reserve Board approval as required under regulatory capital rules to exclude the assets from its calculations. Due to the miscalculations and the firm’s lack of internal accounting controls to ensure its financial statements were being prepared properly, BNY Mellon understated its risk-weighted assets and overstated certain risk-based capital ratios in quarterly and annual reports from the third quarter of 2010 to the first quarter of 2014. SEC