As reported by Bloomberg, at a PLI conference in October of 2021 the Acting Chief Accountant of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), Paul Munter, issued a statement concerning the requirements found in SEC rules that, an auditor who is attesting to the accuracy of client financial statements, must be independent of the client. » Read More
On Tuesday, April 18, 2022, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), in three separate lawsuits brought in the U. S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, charged 16 defendants (one company and 15 individuals) located in the Bahamas, the British Virgin Islands, Bulgaria, Canada, the Cayman Islands, Monaco, Spain, Turkey, and the United Kingdom, for running multi-year fraudulent penny stock schemes that produced over $194 million of illegal receipts.» Read More
Johnson City, Texas, is a city in the very middle of the Texas Hill Country, with a 2020 population of 1627. Johnson City was incorporated in 1879 and named after its founder, Sam E. Johnson, a Texas rancher. It lies amid the so-called “Texas-German” Belt, which originated due to the many German immigrants arriving from 1830 on.» Read More
On Monday, May 2, 2022, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) filed fraud charges in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida against Synergy Settlement Services, Inc. (“Synergy”); its CEO, who is also an attorney and principal of a law firm; and, in addition, Synergy’s President, for defrauding individuals with disabilities into believing that their funds were being placed in one of two pooled trusts managed by a non-profit association.» Read More
I have written previously about the recurring problem of fraudulent financial information used to market and sell municipal securities. See my Sept. 22, 2020, Blog “SEC Focus on Municipal Securities: Disclosure and Enforcement – the Peculiar Structure of the Municipal Securities Disclosure Regime”; my March 2, 2021, Blog “Being Held Accountable: The ‘Education’ of KPMG at the College of New Rochelle”; and by April 28, 2022, Blog “Failing Grades: School District and Auditor Earn SEC Discipline.” » Read More
On Monday, May 25, 2022, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission issued an Order Instituting Administrative and Cease-And-Desist Proceedings (“Order”) against RiverSource Distributors, Inc. (“RDI”) with respect to exchanges it made with existing customers between January 2017 and May 2018 of variable annuities.» Read More
On Thursday, March 3, 2022, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) announced that City National Rochdale, LLC (“CNR”), a Delaware statutory trust sponsoring proprietary mutual funds and serving as their investment adviser, agreed to pay $30,361,803 to settle charges brought by the SEC that the trust had failed to disclose conflicts of interest that defrauded current and prospective clients.» Read More
On Jan. 1, 2021, Congress enacted, over President Trump’s veto, the National Defense Authorization Act, a 4500-page behemoth that in its midst contained the Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2020 (“AMLA”). I attempted to give some overview of this legislation in my Jan.» Read More
On Wednesday, May 5, 2021, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) instituted an administrative proceeding under Rule 102(e) of the SEC Rules of Practice against Seth P. Levine, Esq., a 52-year-old New Jersey attorney (also admitted in New York) residing in Teaneck, Bergen County, New Jersey, regarding charges of fraud through his LLC.» Read More
