Randy Craig Hester (CRD #1382578, Registered Representative, Highland Park, Illinois)   was censured, fined $5,000 and suspended from association with any member firm in any capacity for one year. The fine must be paid either immediately upon Hester’s reassociation with a FINRA member firm following his suspension, or prior to the filing of any […]

There will be a major revamping of suitability mandates effective July 9, 2012, that has some in the broker-dealer world worried about much broader obligations to oversee customer accounts and investment strategies, writes Dan Jamieson in an article from InvestmentNews.com, July 5, 2012. There will be a rule which requires brokers to perform reasonable diligence on products, understand those […]

  Sean K. Hannon (CRD #4296260, Registered Representative, Cary, North Carolina)   has submitted an Offer of Settlement in which he was barred from association with any FINRA member in any capacity. Hannan, without admitting or denying FINRA's allegations, consented to the described sanction and to the entry of findings that he failed to provide investigative […]

  Tsarina Lau Branyan (CRD #5628096, Registered Representative, Huntington Beach, California) has been fined $7500.00 and was suspended from associating with FINRA members in any capacity for 20 business days. This fine is payable when Branyan re-enters the securities industry. These sanctions were based on FINRA's findings that Branyan sold, or participated in the sales of, securities without […]

  Alan Jay Davidofsky (CRD #1389312, Registered Representative, Delray Beach, Florida) has been fined by FINRA in the amount of $11,741.78, which represents disgorgement, and he has been barred from association with any FINRA member in any capacity. These sanctions were based on the findings that Davidofsky made unauthorized transactions in his customer’s account, controlled the customer’s […]

Enrique Roy (CRD #5339904, Registered Representative, Miami Beach, Florida)  has been barred from association with any FINRA member in any capacity. This FINRA sanction was based on their findings that Enrique Roy failed to respond to requests from FINRA for information about an outside brokerage account at a member firm he had opened on a customer’s […]

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged investment management company OppenheimerFunds Inc. and its sales and distribution division on June 6th., 2012, with making misleading statements about two of its mutual funds  that struggled in the credit crisis in late 2008. The investigation found that Oppenheimer used derivative instruments known as total return swaps (TRS contracts) to […]

It was recently announced that the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) will repay investors in Massachusetts, $2.9 million on losses from leveraged and non-leveraged exchange-traded funds, also know as ETFs.  This is just another example of the losses experienced, and now the crackdown on these very volatile funds. Massachusetts' top securities regulator, William Galvin, said in […]

Securities Lawyer, Lars K. Soreide, of Soreide Law Group has announced an investigation into claims on behalf of  investors who may have suffered  significant  investment  losses due to Jeffrey Scott Donner. Jeffrey Scott Donner (CRD #2631248, Registered Principal, Weston, Florida) was a  financial advisor with Cape Securities, Aura Financial, and Saxony Securities. Donner has been permanently barred from the securities industry with FINRA, and […]