A majority of investment advisers want to see the Securities and Exchange Commission charge user fees for adviser examinations, and reject the idea of adviser oversight by a self-regulatory organization or a more expansive Finra, according to an InvestmentNews poll. The support for user fees — 58.7%, versus 41.3% who don’t support the fees, among 293 advisers who responded to a survey conducted late last week — is a sharp increase from a year ago, when just 27.8% of 335 advisers backed the user fee approach. Read Investment News report [...]
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While Greece and Spain were grabbing the financial headlines last week, two other high-profile financial stories were also getting a lot of attention for very different reasons. The first concerned the disgraced financier Allen Stanford, who was sentenced to 110 years without parole by a court in Houston for running a $7 billion Ponzi scheme, which wiped out the life savings of many of his investors. The second was that Shane Filan, a member of the boy band Westlife, had filed for bankruptcy because of the failure of his Irish property development company. More on MSNBC [...] Rakoff hearing is scheduled for 2:00 today, Monday, June 18th, where Rakoff is expected to rule on who more than 300 of Picard’s suits should be handled in light of the Smith case, titled Stern v. Marshall. The hearing will take place at the Daniel Patrick Moynihan United States Courthouse, The trustee unwinding the brokerage of MF Global Holdings Ltd. struck a deal with CME Group Inc. CME +1.21% that will see the futures-exchange operator turn over about $130 million in property that will go to former customers of the collapsed firm. The figure will be split between U.S.-based and overseas accounts, according to a Thursday notice from trustee James Giddens. An additional $16.5 million in property will continue to be held by CME to cover any claims against the trustee, and $28.5 million more will go to the judge overseeing the case to be allocated later, according to a spokesman for Mr. Giddens. More in the Wall Street Journal here. [...] – Bernard Madoff was sentenced to a 150-year prison term after revealing that he used his investment advisory business to cheat thousands of investors of roughly $20 billion in a multi-decade fraud, using the money from new investors to pay returns to existing clients. More on Bloomberg Businessweek here. [...] As she spoke on behalf of Texas financier R. Allen Stanford’s victims Thursday, Angela Shaw asked those present in the courtroom to stand. Shaw, whose family lost millions to Stanford’s $7 billion Ponzi scheme, has spent the past three years speaking for the thousands of victims in the case. With half the gallery on its feet, she asked U.S. District Judge David Hittner to make the convicted swindler stand and face his victims. More in the San Francisco Chronicle [...] Imagine, for a moment, that you’re on the board of a major company. Let’s make it fun and give you a seat on the Apple board of directors. As you know, each quarter, Apple announces its earnings to the public and, if you knew them ahead of time, you could make some major money. The good news is that you do know them ahead of time, so why not cash in, right? Read San Francisco Chronicle report [...] Bernard Madoff’s fraudulent investment firm was responsible for emotional damages that often were as painful as the financial losses. Madoff used a Ponzi scheme to cheat thousands of people out of billions of dollars. Yet, the money speaks mostly to the mechanism of the crime. And looking exclusively at the balance sheet provides little insight into the victims’ perspective. Now, a book being published this month by UB sociologist Lionel S. Lewis examines the depth and various dimensions of the crime’s aftermath to discover how the largest investment fraud in U.S. history affected its victims. More on UB Reporter [...] Ponzi schemes leave their victims in financial ruin and their perpetrators, if caught, with lengthy prison terms like the 110-year sentence given Thursday to swindler and former Texas billionaire Allen Stanford. What is a Ponzi scheme?The Ponzi scheme, named after Charles Ponzi, who used the technique in the 1920s, purports to invest in something that generates extraordinary returns for investors, when in actuality the funds are generated by luring new victims and using their money. More in the International Business Times here. As she spoke on behalf of Allen Stanford’s victims Thursday, Angela Shaw asked those present in the courtroom to stand. Shaw, whose family lost millions to Stanford’s $7 billion Ponzi scheme, has spent the past three years speaking for the thousands of victims in the case. With half the gallery on its feet, she asked U.S. District Judge David Hittner to make the convicted swindler stand and face his victims. The judge refused, and Stanford continued to face forward. Read more on Chron.com here. [...] |
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