Blog Posts in 2012
Posted on May 16, 2012 By Lasky & Rifkind
Last week, a federal judge for the Northern District of California tossed a lawsuit filed by Charles Schwab against FINRA in a dispute over new language added to Schwab's customer account ...
Continue reading "Schwab Loses Lawsuit; FINRA Enforcement Action to Proceed" »
Posted on May 7, 2012 By Lasky & Rifkind
FINRA has filed a proposed rule change with the SEC, proposing to amend its Customer and Industry Codes of Arbitration Procedure to raise the limit for simplified arbitration from $25,000 to $50,000. ...
Continue reading "FINRA Proposes Rule Change to Raise Simplified Arbitration Cap" »
Posted on Mar 14, 2012 By Lasky & Rifkind
Thornburg Mortgage Inc. The SEC filed charges this week against the CEO, CFO and CAO of Thornburg Mortgage for fraudulently reporting the company's income in early 2008. According to the ...
Continue reading "SEC Activity" »
Posted on Mar 5, 2012 By Heidi VonderHeide
FINRA is seeking comments on whether it should expand the information available on its BrokerCheck system . Since 1988, FINRA's BrokerCheck system has allowed investors to retrieve basic ...
Continue reading "FINRA Proposes BrokerCheck Expansion" »
Posted on Feb 24, 2012 By Heidi VonderHeide
FINRA issued an investor alert this week reminding investors to carefully review their brokerage statements and trade confirmations. The alert breaks the statements down by segment, carefully ...
Continue reading "FINRA Issues Investor Alert On the Importance of Understanding Brokerage Statements" »
Posted on Feb 19, 2012 By Lasky & Rifkind
Check out John Wasik's article over at Forbes.com on REIT investments. He provides a great list of caveats to consider before investing. The article can be found here . A general overview of this ...
Continue reading "Risk and REITs" »
Posted on Feb 1, 2012 By Heidi VonderHeide
Today, FINRA filed a disciplinary complaint against Charles Schwab & Co. for changes made to its customer account agreements. In October 2011, Schwab amended its agreements to include a Waiver of ...
Continue reading "FINRA: Schwab's Waivers Are Against the Rules." »
Posted on Jan 28, 2012 By Heidi VonderHeide
Email hacking has become increasingly common in recent years. So much so that most people either have been victims of this or know someone who has. These hackers somehow obtain and use your email ...
Continue reading "FINRA: Email Hacking Endangers Brokerage Accounts." »
Posted on Jan 22, 2012 By Heidi VonderHeide
A FINRA arbitration panel recently awarded a group of 40 investors $9.1 million in compensatory damages and attorneys fees arising out of the sale of failed non-traded private placements. The award ...
Continue reading "REIT Private Placement Awards Continue to Roll In. Actual Recovery in Remains in Doubt." »
Posted on Jan 22, 2012 By Heidi VonderHeide
The Stanford Securities Class Action Clearinghouse released its year end review this week, reporting that securities filings were slightly up in 2011. According to the report, a total of 188 federal ...
Continue reading "Class Action Clearinghouse: Class Action Filings Increase Slightly In 2011." »
Posted on Jan 14, 2012 By Heidi VonderHeide
FINRA recently filed a proposed rule change with the SEC, proposing to amend Rule 13204 of its Industry Arbitration Code. Rule 13204, which precludes class action claims from being arbitrated before ...
Continue reading "Proposed FINRA Rule Change Seeks to Expressly Preclude Certain Collective Actions" »
Posted on Jan 5, 2012 By Heidi VonderHeide
The Wall Street Journal online has an interesting article this week on securities often called tenancies-in-common, or "TICs," TICs are fractional-ownership type investments where several ...
Continue reading "WSJ: The Risks of TIC Real Estate Investments." »