WASHINGTON — From the FINRA Newsroom, it was announced that The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) has filed a complaint against David Lerner & Associates, Inc. (DLA), of Syosset, NY, charging the firm with soliciting investors to purchase shares in Apple REIT Ten, a non-traded $2 billion Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT), without conducting a […]

WASHINGTON —It was announced on FINRA's website that The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) has suspended William Bailey, a former NEXT Financial Group, Inc. broker of Mesa, Arizona, from the securities industry for two years for unsuitable and excessive trading of mutual funds and variable annuities. Bailey also engaged in discretionary trading without receiving prior written […]

WASHINGTON — In an article from FINRA's website, The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) announced that it has fined SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc. (SunTrust RH) and SunTrust Investment Services, Inc. (SunTrust IS) for violations related to the sale of auction rate securities (ARS). SunTrust RH, which underwrote the ARS, was fined $4.6 million for failing to […]

Soreide Law Group, PLLC, announced that they are currently investigating the sale of the Laeroc Funds, including the Laeroc 2002 Income Fund LP, Laeroc 2004-2005 Income Fund LP, Laeroc 2005-2006 Income Fund LP, Laeroc Edge Fund LP and Laeroc Income Fund 2007, LP. These Laeroc funds were sold as real estate private placements (under Regulation D).  […]

Bruce Kelly writes in a Sept. 13th, 2011, article in InvestmentNews.com that a broker-dealer who sold millions of dollars of failed private placements reached a $200,000 settlement with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority Inc. last month, with the money going to the investors. In a Finra letter of acceptance, waiver and consent, Capital Financial Services Inc. of Minot, […]

In an article from InvestmentNews.com, Bruce Kelly writes that after avoiding the pitfalls of disastrous Regulation D deals during the past decade, Commonwealth Financial Network and LPL Financial LLC, are contending with potential fallout from a real estate private placement that faces pressure from its creditors. The financial advisers from both Commonwealth and LPL sold the […]

 Josh Funk, a business writer for the AP wrote that  TD Ameritrade has agreed to a $10 million settlement for failing to properly supervise representatives who misled investors about the safety of a money-market mutual fund that "broke the buck" in 2008, the Securities and Exchange Commission said. Funk writes that TD Ameritrade Holding Corp. customers who still hold […]

It was reported that on July 22, 2011, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) released a report from its Life Settlements Task Force which recommended that the SEC urge Congress to amend the federal securities laws to include life settlements as securities. The SEC report also recommended that the SEC monitor brokers and providers to assure […]

In an article from InvestmentNews.com, Mark Schoeff Jr., writes that broker-dealers have been engaging in sales practices for structured securities products that hurt retail investors, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) report released in July. The article goes on to say that in an examinations of 11 broker-dealers, the SEC found that the firms […]