Final judgment has been entered against Temenos Advisory Inc. and its former CEO George Taylor, the SEC announced. The SEC had charged Temenos and Taylor with putting investor funds in unsuitable investments and concealing commissions. In total, Temenos and Taylor are ordered to pay more than $2 million. The entry of judgment concludes a case that began with the SEC charging Temenos and Taylor in July 2018.
In connection with an alleged $6.3 million Ponzi scheme, Phillip Roy Wasserman and Kenneth Murry Rossman (collectively, “Defendants”) have been charged by federal prosecutors with mail fraud, wire fraud, and conspiracy to commit wire and mail fraud. Defendants are alleged to have targeted elderly individuals and convinced those individuals to liquidate traditional investments in order to invest in “FastLife,” an insurance venture by Wasserman. Wasserman and Rossman are alleged to have made fraudulent misrepresentations and to have concealed material information when soliciting investments in FastLife.
This is the second of several posts detailing the CFP Board enforcement process. The first post detailed the CFP Board’s investigation process. This post will focus on one potential outcome of a CFP Board investigation: an interim suspension.
The CFP Board announced a wide array of new enforcement activities, which includes spending $5 million to conduct background checks on all CFP professionals. This move comes after a task force found “significant failures in the execution of the CFP Board’s enforcement program[.]” Additionally, a July 2019 story in The Wall Street Journal detailed how the CFP Board website failed to inform users about past disciplinary issues for CFP professionals. The Wall Street Journal found that more than 5,000 advisors who were listed on the CFP Board website as having a clean disciplinary record actually had a disciplinary history.
Former First Standard Financial broker, Frank Venturelli, agreed to pay restitution of $30,000 and to serve an 11-month suspension from association with any FINRA member firm in all capacities. According to FINRA Enforcement, Venturelli engaged in excessive trading in three customer accounts between July 2016 and November 2018.
Brothers Sean and Shane Hvizdzak have been charged by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) for allegedly misappropriating investor money from High Street Capital Fund USA LP, a cryptocurrency investment fund. The SEC also alleges that the Hvizdzaks misrepresented the fund’s performance to investors. The U.S. District Court granted the SEC’s request to freeze the Hvizdzaks’ assets and for a temporary restraining
In a landmark ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation.
The COVID-19 pandemic is taking a toll on the hedge fund industry. Barclays Capital Solutions is reporting that between $50 billion and $100 billion may be pulled out of hedge funds by investors in 2020. This year could see the largest withdrawal of investor funds from hedge funds since 2008 when investors withdrew $154 billion.
This is the first in a 3-part series addressing the CFP Board’s new self-reporting requirements that went into effect on October 1, 2019. Among the changes in the new rule is an expansion of the self-reporting requirements for CFP professionals. Like the old rule, the new rule requires a CFP professional to self-report to the CFP board within 30 calendar days.
