CNL Securities published an article on June 11, 2020, entitled “Big Data is Watching You.” It begins by portraying a particular type of securities fraud, involving “cherry-picking” by a market professional who allocates the profits from winning trades to his own account, but leaves the losses from losing trades in the accounts of his clients. The» Read More

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

In July 1993 two brothers, David and Tom Gardner, and a friend, Erik Rydholm, founded a private investment advisory firm in Alexandria, Virginia. They named that firm Motley Fool after the court jester in “As You Like It,” a play written by William Shakespeare (it is believed in 1599). » Read More

On Jan. 25, 2019, the tailing dam of “upstream design” known as Dam 1 (the “Dam”) at the Corrego do Feijao iron ore mine six miles east of Brumadinho, Minas Gerais, Brazil, collapsed after suffering a catastrophic failure. That collapse released nearly 12 million cubic tons of mining waste into the Paraopeba River, caused the death of 270 people, resulted in “immeasurable environmental and social harm” (according to the April 28 Press Release of the U.S.» Read More

On Monday, April 18, 2022, the U. S. Securities and  Exchange Commission (“SEC”) announced charges against Fernando Passos, the former executive Vice President of Finance and Investor Relations of a Brazilian reinsurance company, IRB Brazil Resseguros S. A., for planting a story with the media claiming that Warren Buffett (the “Oracle of Omaha”)’s company, Berkshire Hathaway, Inc.» Read More