The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) agreed to a settlement with at least five investment advisory firms including UBS Wealth Management, Wells Fargo, LPL Financial and MML Investor Services for nearly $9.5 million regarding college savings plan sales violations.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed suit against James Couture after the Massachusetts-based advisor allegedly misappropriated $2.9 million from his clients.
A former LPL Financial and Lincoln Financial Advisors Corp. financial advisor has pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud stemming from his theft of $600,000 from an elderly client.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) filed an emergency action against Matthew O. Clason, a former advisor with LPL Financial in Cheshire, Connecticut. According to the SEC, Clason stole more than $300,000 from a 73-year-old client.
LPL Financial is pushing its new employee affiliation model and other new channels in its continuing endeavor to add financial advisors and customer assets. LPL began marketing its “premium” channel to wirehouse reps in the fall. LPL is encouraged by the growing pipeline of interested advisors.
FINRA has suspended former LPL Financial investment adviser, James E. “Jeb” Bashaw for failing to disclose to LPL that he borrowed $200,000 from a customer in 2013.
In 2018, LPL Financial reported a record amount of assets that the firm recruited to its brokerage and advisory practices. The firm received $233.3 million of assets in 2018, a 46% increase from the year before.
According to the SEC, 79 investment firms, including LPL Financial, Raymond James, Oppenheimer, and Wells Fargo have agreed to return more than $125 million to investors for failing to report conflicts of interest in their sale of mutual funds.
As Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley and UBS Financial Services, Inc. have recently pulled back their recruiting efforts in order to focus on growing assets and revenue internally, firms such as Wells Fargo Advisors, LPL Financial and Cetera Financial Group are seeking the opportunity to gain ground by offering attractive recruiting bonuses.
LPL Financial has recently announced that it is changing the way that it pays external and internal recruiters.
If the regulators are after you, and are trying to make a case against you, and you are going to contest their allegations against you, make sure you have the best securities industry defense lawyers, Eccleston Law Firm. My case was spun into a combination of penalties including fines, cash settlements, CE courses and suspension. They were the best I have seen in action. When all was said and done, they had done their magic, my situation was negotiated and settled with a simple "letter of caution" and a case closed without action. It is the most important legal business decision you will ever make, make it Eccleston Law.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has agreed to a $9 million settlement
with Heartland Bank & Trust Co. over the bank’s alleged role in aiding and abetting a $75
million Ponzi scheme.
A federal judge has awarded Morgan Stanley a temporary restraining order (TRO)
against a Pennsylvania-based advisor who recently departed for LPL Financial.
Sanford Bernstein & Co. and Alliance Bernstein (Bernstein) are facing what could be the first of several Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) arbitration claims related to its Options Advantage Strategy.
