Regulation and Compliance issues for Wealth Professionals can be challenging to navigate especially when the SEC is involved. Catch the latest news and analysis on compliance updates that impact financial advisors.
Q: As a nonproducing registered representative who acts in a purely operational and/or compliance capacity, how much are we expected or allowed to make when home-office issues become too unbearable? Our broker/dealer is constantly losing documents...
Nothing ruins a Sunday afternoon football game for Roy Diliberto more than one of those ads about stockbrokers who are unusually committed to their clients. The ones where a wirehouse broker is shown to be like a member of an extended family. I...
Terry Kassel, head of Merrill Lynch's human resources department, will be retiring at the end of this year, after 20 years with the firm and four years as head of the department. Smith Barney has hired Stacy Brandom as chief financial officer of...
Offshore trusts are popular estate-planning tools for a various reasons, especially legal impunity. Some offshore jurisdictions don't recognize foreign judgments, and creditors have limited time to make claims on trusts established there.1 No...
So what exactly are fraud, fraudulent conveyance, deceit and fraudulent transfer and when are attorneys accountable? Being a trustee entails risk of personal liability. Being one of a number of trustees can increase the risk. In the legendary...
It wasn't tainted research. It wasn't late trading. It wasn't even good for a lot of headlines. But it was another ugly moment for investment advisors when, in mid-2004, politicians and regulators began looking into 529 college savings plan sales...
In October 2003, a back-office glitch made Robert Burns the recipient of $12,000 that did not belong to him. Burns was an advisor with Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith, and the error involved crediting the funds to Burns' personal account...
Theodore Sihpol III, a former broker at Banc of America Securities (BAS), and poster boy for the market-timing scandals and the first target of Spitzer to say no to a plea offer has settled with the SEC. In 2003, the SEC alleged that Sihpol helped...
Q: Is there any way my employer can find out if I receive W-2 income from other sources, which, by the way, are not from other brokerage firms? When I called the IRS, I was told there is no way it would disclose that confidential information to a...
Cooked Books: Philip Bennett, former CEO of Refco Inc., the largest independent commodities and futures exchange, was arrested on securities fraud charges in October. It is alleged that a firm Bennett controlled owed Refco as much as $545 million...