Financial and Investment Fraud
This archive displays posts tagged as relevant to financial and investment fraud. You may also be interested in the following pages:
October 5, 2015
The head of a sham debt relief operation agreed to a judgment of more than $7.9 million to settle FTC charges that he deceived consumers and charged them thousands of dollars while providing nothing in return. In a complaint filed in May 2014, the FTC alleged that the DebtPro 123 LLC defendants falsely told consumers their programs would settle all of their debts and repair their credit. Then they told them to stop paying and communicating with creditors, which led to more debt and worse credit because of accrued interest, late charges, creditor lawsuits, garnished wages, and sometimes bankruptcy. FTCAugust 10, 2015
A New Hampshire investment advisor was sentenced to up to 7 years in prison for fraud. Richard M. Higgins plead guilty to one felony count of engaging in a course of conduct involving a scheme to defraud in connection with the purchase and sale of securities, and one felony count of a course of business that operated as fraud in connection with acting as an investment advisor. Beginning in late 2006 and continuing through August 2007, Higgins solicited investors for a pooled investment in the form of a limited partnership, making a number of false and misleading statements. Higgins then further defrauded the investors by providing them quarterly statements which regularly overstated the performance of their investments. NHAugust 7, 2015
The FTC charged a data broker operation, including Sequoia One LLC and Gen X Marketing Group LLC, with illegally selling payday loan applicants’ financial information to a scam operation that took millions of dollars from consumers by debiting their bank accounts and charging their credit cards without their consent. According to the FTC’s complaint, the data broker enterprise bought loan applications from the operators of payday loan websites, and got others directly from consumers via their own payday loan websites. Instead of passing on those applications to legitimate payday lenders, the defendants sold the information to companies that raided the consumers’ accounts for at least $7.1 million. FTCWall Street Still Behaving Badly
Posted 05/21/15
By the C|C Whistleblower Lawyer Team
In the wake of the Great Financial Crisis, there was both a public and private battle cry of "Never Again!" Dodd-Frank was passed with its sweeping regulations to keep Wall Street in check, and federal and state enforcers went on regulatory rampage extracting 9 and10-figure settlements from a who's who list of the world's top financial firms. Not many Wall Street...
April 23, 2015
German-based Deutsche Bank AG and its UK-based subsidiary DB Group Services (UK) Limited agreed to pay more than $2.5 billion to settle US and UK allegations relating to their role in manipulating and false reporting of the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR) and Euribor. In addition to the monetary payout, DB Group Services agreed to plead guilty to wire fraud and Deutsche Bank entered into a deferred prosecution agreement to resolve wire fraud and price-fixing charges. The settlement payment consists of an $800 million CFTC penalty, a $600 million penalty payable to the New York Department of Financial Services, $344 million payable to the U.K. Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) action, and criminal penalties and disgorgement payable in an agreement with DOJ, including a $150 million fine payable by DB Group Services and a $625 million penalty payable by Deutsche Bank. DOJ; CFTC; NYApril 16, 2015
A former retail insurance agent with Kilgore Insurance Agency, along with the agency’s owners, have been ordered to pay more than $3.5 million in restitution and interest for overcharging clients, mostly small business owners, by padding insurance premiums with hidden “agency fees.” MAApril 15, 2015
New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman announced a $10 million settlement of a lawsuit filed against the auditing firm Ernst & Young LLP over its involvement in a financial statement fraud at the now-defunct investment bank, Lehman Brothers Holdings, Inc. That money will be distributed as restitution to investors in Lehman securities, along with some $99 million being paid by Ernst & Young to settle a private federal class action that relied in part on facts uncovered by the Attorney General’s investigation. No other law enforcement authority has brought an enforcement action in connection with the 2008 collapse of Lehman and today’s settlement resolves the first lawsuit brought against an auditor of a public company under New York’s securities laws. NYMarch 13, 2015
Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi’s Office obtained a temporary injunction and asset freeze against World Mark Wholesale and Trade, LLC for allegedly engaging in a systematic scheme to defraud owners of timeshares throughout Florida and nationwide. FLNew Report Highlights Effectiveness of Private Sector Whistleblower Programs
Posted 03/12/15
By Marlene Koury
A recent report shows internal whistleblower reporting programs are getting stronger and more effective. As companies continue to invest in the development of these programs, whistleblowers are encouraged to report fraud and misconduct, providing higher quality tips than ever before. But as concerns are being shared in record numbers, the report also notes organizations are often too slow to...