Practice

Former AllianceBernstein mutual fund sales manager John Carl won a $12 million arbitration lawsuit for having been dismissed from the company on the pretext of his role in the market-timing scandal.

Securities and Exchange Commissioner Paul Atkins has announced he will leave the agency when his term expires in June to return to the private sector.

The turmoil in the $330 billion auction rate securities (ARS) market has spurred a series of investigations by the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (Finra), and Massachusetts securities regulators. Congressional leaders are calling for relief, allowing mutual funds to provide liquidity to retail investors holding the securities.

A Federal appeals court yesterday upheld a 160-month, or 13-year, three-month, sentence for stockbroker and frequent CNN guest Todd Eberhard.

Pointing to illiquidity and poor fair valuation conditions, two ranking Congressmen have asked Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox to cut mutual fund portfolio managers a break on redemptions of auction-rate securities.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has filed a settlement enforcement action against Bank of America’s Banc of America Investment Services Inc. for failure to disclose it favored two mutual funds.

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority’s National Adjudicatory Council yesterday upheld FINRA’s 2006 decision to fine American Funds Distributors $5 million for directing traders—worth $98 million in brokerage commissions—between 2001-2003 to 46 broker/dealers that sold its family of 29 mutual funds.

The Hartford suffered a serious 83% drop in net income due, the firm announced yesterday, to poor investments.

The Charles Schwab Foundation will sponsor awards for the National Financial Literacy Challenge, a 35-question test of personal finance for high school students in the U.S.

WASHINGTON - The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency's $144 million enforcement order against Wachovia Corp. is likely to force banks to step up oversight of telemarketing customers.