A FINRA arbitration panel issued an award of damages to Greco & Greco clients against UBS of Puerto Rico on February 23, 2018. The arbitration involved multiple Puerto Rico customers of UBS who had been invested primarily in UBS Puerto Rico Closed-End Mutual Funds and Puerto Rico Bonds. The award,…
In this FINRA Arbitration held in Jackson, Mississippi, Greco & Greco represented a retiree who was cold-called by a New York broker. The broker’s investments ultimately lost a significant amount of the client’s savings in several overconcentrated stock positions. The FINRA panel awarded $80,000 in damages, $15,000 in punitive damages…
W. Scott Greco, working with local Puerto Rico co-counsel, represented multiple customers in FINRA arbitration hearings in 2019 against UBS of Puerto Rico that resulted in monetary awards to the customers. The first, a case involving overconcentration in risky UBS Puerto Rico closed end funds, resulted in an award of…
In this case taken pro bonoby Greco & Greco, the FINRA arbitrator awarded the full amount of compensatory damages and interest requested based on claims of negligence, breach of fiduciary duty, and unsuitable recommendations. The arbitrator found that the brokerage firm “failed to recommend suitable investments based on [Claimant’s] request,…
McLean, Virginia based law firm Greco & Greco, P.C. is currently investigating the activities of Ameriprise and its former financial advisor, James W. Dunn, who operated out of an office in Vienna, Virginia. As more fully set out in his FINRA Brokercheck Report (www.brokercheck.finra.org), former Ameriprise financial advisor James W.…
A FINRA arbitration panel issued an award last month to a client of Greco & Greco who had filed securities fraud, breach of fiduciary duty, negligence, unsuitability, and other legal claims against UBS related to its Yield Enhancement Strategy, also known as YES. The award totaled approximately $300,000.00 and included…
The U.S. Securities Exchange Commission charged multiple Investment Advisory Firms and Broker-Dealers with unsuitable sales of exchange traded products to their customers. According to the SEC Press Release, the firms recommended the purchase and holding of these products, despite the fact that the products were only supposed to track the short…
In a recent disciplinary action against Cadaret, Grant & Co., Inc., FINRA discusses various red flags that should have been investigated by the firm to discover and prevent the sale of a ponzi scheme investment to its customers. The Letter of Acceptance, Waiver and Consent (found here) states that the…
The SEC and federal prosecutors recently charged a Mclean, Virginia based Morgan Stanley financial advisor with stealing millions of dollars from his customers from 2007 to 2019 when his fraud was discovered. The SEC Complaint against the broker, Michael Barry Carter (also known as “Mike Carter”), can be found at https://www.sec.gov/litigation/complaints/2020/comp-pr2020-158.pdf…
FINRA issued a Letter of Acceptance, Waiver and Consent against Suntrust Investment Services, Inc. in May of 2020 related to the recommendation and failure to supervise non-traditional ETFs to customers. Non Traditional ETFs include ETFs designed to, on a daily basis, return a multiple of an underlying index or benchmark,…