Posts Categorized: Broker-Dealers

FINRA Adopts New Capital Acquisition Rules

In August, the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) has approved new Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (“FINRA”) rules allowing a person registering as a “Capital Acquisition Broker” (“CAB”) to meet lesser obligations than those that FINRA would apply to full broker-dealers.  See SEC Release 34-78617, here.  A CAB is defined to include a person: (i) advising an issuer… Read more »

SEC Announces Settlement of Another Misleading Trade Case – Bonacci

Shortly after the Chin case was settled, the SEC settled a similar case with Nicholas Bonacci on September 26, 2016.  Here is the link to their decision.  Like Chin, Bonacci was a trader in 2012 in generally illiquid residential mortgage-backed securities, in this case at Morgan Stanley & Co (“Morgan Stanley”).  “Many” of the customers managed… Read more »

The U.S. Department of Labor Issues Final Fiduciary Rule on Giving Investment Advice on Employee Benefit Plans

The U.S. Department of Labor (the “DOL”) finally published its rule requiring that investment advisers act as fiduciaries (and not just determine that an investment is “suitable”) when providing recommendations on investment of funds in “plans”, such as 401k and other plans under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (“ERISA”), and non-ERISA plans such as… Read more »

SEC Settles With Institutional Fixed Income Trader on Charges of Misleading Clients – Chin

In August 2016, the SEC settled a “Litvak” type case with Edwin K. Chin, a former Goldman Sachs trader of residential mortgage-backed securities (“RMBS”).  The RMBS that he traded were relatively illiquid.  He was accused of both misleading customers about the ownership of the securities – in some cases, Goldman Sachs already owned the securities… Read more »