The clients, all residents of Puerto Rico, claimed UBS violated the Puerto Rico Uniform Securities Act and engaged in securities fraud, common law fraud and constructive fraud, in addition to breaching its fiduciary duty and negligently supervising its personnel.

The award, totaling $521,075.00 in damages, was significant because most of the damages were incurred in investments that UBS claimed were conservative (the Puerto Rico AAA Portfolio Bond Fund and COFINA bonds), and UBS further unsuccessfully claimed that the customers had not lost any money because of the interest/dividends they had earned over the years in the investments.

As set out in more detail at Greco & Greco’s website (http://www.securities-lawyers.net/ubs-puerto-rico) the UBS Puerto Rico Closed-End Funds (CEFs) were high risk investments which used leverage (a speculative investment technique) and which did not have a market (they were traded by UBS’s trading desk but UBS had the ability to stop trading of the funds at any time).

The case involved a heavy over-concentration of the Claimant’s UBS account in proprietary UBS closed end bond funds pursuant to UBS’s recommendations. The funds invested heavily in Puerto Rico bonds using leverage (a speculative investment technique), and had significant geographic concentration risk.

Read about the arbitration award in this Reuters article.

The Awards (for cases filed after the 2013 crash of the CEF market) are summarized below:

1. Bauza v. UBS Financial Services of Puerto Rico, et al.. Greco & Greco represented the Claimant in this case which resulted in the first award against UBS regarding the Puerto Rico CEFs. UBS claimed that the Claimant only had $8,000 in net losses from the funds, but the panel awarded $200,000.00. The case was tried in Washington, DC.

2. Rosado v. UBS Fin. Serv. of Puerto Rico, et al. Claimant sought $1,033,596 in damages. The arbitration panel issued a written opinion (not common in FINRA arbitrations) making the following findings: a. “In the process of reducing its exposure in the CEFs by some 75%, UBS undertook an internal push for its brokers to sell its inventory to customers;” b. “this account was extremely over-concentrated and clearly unsuitable for Claimant;” and c. “proper and required supervision could have prevented Claimant’s losses or at least limited them greatly.”

The panel Ordered UBS to rescind the sales of the CEFs by repurchasing Claimant’s account for $1,000,000.

3. Ramis v. UBS Fin. Serv. of Puerto Rico, et al. The Claimants in this case requested 2 – 2.5 million dollars in compensatory damages. The panel awarded $250,000 against UBS.

4. Rodriguez Gonzalez v. UBS Fin. Serv. of Puerto Rico, et al. Claimants requested damages at the end of the hearing of 3 to 6 million dollars. The panel awarded $2,545,000.00.

5. Lopez Del Valle v. UBS Fin. Serv. of Puerto Rico et al. This case involved a large number of Claimants, however, all but three Claimants settled their claims prior to the final hearing. The orignal Statement of Claim requested ten million dollars in damages, but the award is not clear how much of those damages were requested by the three remaining Claimants. The arbitration panel awarded $2,395,402.00 in compensatory damages, interest from the filing of the Statement of Claim, $50,000 in costs, $5,000 in expert witness fees, and significantly, $479,079.80 in attorneys fees.

In summary, all of the arbitration panels that have heard these cases have issued awards in favor of Claimants, with one also awarding attorneys fees. If you would like to speak to an attorney about possible claims related to UBS of Puerto Rico bond funds, please read more about these claims at Greco & Greco’s website (http://www.securities-lawyers.net/ubs_puerto_rico.html) and contact Scott Greco for a free consultation (Contact Us).

The SEC press release and Orders can be found here: SEC Press Release 2015-217. The SEC alleged that UBS Financial Services of Puerto Rico (UBSPR) failed to supervise its broker in relation to solicited loans used to purchase additional UBSPR closed end funds, while failing to disclose the risks of this strategy and misrepresenting the safety of the strategy. The SEC further alleged that UBSPR did not implement reasonable supervisory procedures and had inadequate systems in place to prevent and detect this wrongful conduct.

UBS was censured and fined over fourteen million dollars.

FINRA also fined UBSPR for actions related to its Puerto Rico Bond funds – the press release states the following:

“…for more than four years, UBS PR failed to monitor the combination of leverage and concentration levels in customer accounts to ensure that the transactions were suitable given the customers’ risk objectives and profiles. The firm failed to implement a reasonably designed system to identify and prevent unsuitable transactions in light of the unique Puerto Rican economy, in which retail customers typically maintained high levels of concentration in Puerto Rican assets and often used those highly concentrated accounts as collateral for cash loans. Despite UBS PR’s knowledge of these common practices, it failed to adequately monitor concentration and leverage levels to identify whether certain customers’ CEF transactions were suitable in light of the increased risks in their existing portfolio.”

The above sales practices and lack of supervision have formed the basis of hundreds of FINRA arbitration claims pending against UBS and UBSPR. If you would like to speak to an attorney about possible claims related to UBS of Puerto Rico bond funds, please contact Scott Greco for a free consultation.