Regulation

A South Florida man charged with running a $13.6 million scam involving nonexistent shares in companies including Facebook and Groupon was sentenced to 11 years in prison.

Franklin Buys Remaining Stake in Alt Shop

Two U.S. Senate aides nominated to join the Securities and Exchange Commission will get a confirmation hearing before the Senate Banking Committee on June 27, according to a Senate announcement today.

When advisors are asked to describe their compensation on the FPA website, they can choose to check one of four options: fee-only, commission-only, a combination of fee and commission, or salary. But as one prominent advisor recently learned, those options are dangerously limited, given the industry’s often complex business models -- and the answers that planners select can contain minefields for the advisors, their firms and their clients.

Seven financial advisors had their right to use the Certified Financial Planning certification marks permanently revoked in March as part of a series of public disciplinary actions announced by the CFP Board this week.

"The bottom-line is to protect investors from advisors who may not have their best interest,” says Jack Waymire, the founder of Paladin Research and Registry. “We’re providing them the process to find out about the advisors they’re thinking of hiring – with a focus on certification, ethics, business practices, and services provided.”

Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke said Wednesday that regulators are making steady progress on a number of critical rules under the Dodd-Frank Act, predicting that several final rules will be released in the coming months.

The House Financial Services Committee on Wednesday approved a slew of bills that would slow the pace of regulatory proceedings to expand advisors' fiduciary responsibilities and relax registration requirements, among other measures.

With FINRA clearly stating its social media guidelines, the question many advisors are asking themselves is this: what do I do now? Luckily, there are three simple steps to avoiding regulatory fines and keeping your advisors actively online.

A targeted examination letter probes firms for detailed information on their social media use as the regulator grows more serious about enforcement.