Compliance

Taxpayers Beware: Gifts to charities have come under IRS scrutiny.

Our legal expert explains the ins and outs of setting up a backup plan to service an advisor's clients if he or she is unable to do so.

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority has hit Raymond James & Associates and Raymond James Financial Services Inc. with an order to pay $1.69 million in restitution to more than 15,500 customers who were charged unfair commissions.

A Long Island-based investment advisor repeatedly lied to investors to conceal the fact that his PIPE investment and trading strategy was failing during the financial crisis and stole more than $1 million in client assets to buy personal luxury items including a Lexus, a Mercedes and a Rolex watch, according to the SEC.

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority has hit Raymond James & Associates and Raymond James Financial Services Inc. with an order to pay $1.69 million in restitution to more than 15,500 customers who were charged unfair commissions.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged a San Francisco-area investment advisor with fraud for allegedly lying to clients about how brokerage commission rebates were being used and then providing phony documents to cover up the so-called “soft-dollars” scam during an SEC examination.

Now that the Department of Labor is back at the drawing board trying to determine what should constitute a fiduciary under 1975 ERISA amendments, the industry wants to make at least one point clear: investors should have good choices, regardless of the business model their advisors use.

The advocacy organization representing independent broker-dealers and independent financial advisors will press its policy priorities to lawmakers on Capitol Hill as part of a two-day summit in the nation's capital.

Wall Street firms shouldn't think about complying with the Internal Revenue Service's new rules requiring them to calculate the cost of investors' accounts only as a burdensome operational cost. Instead, they should think of following the new cost-basis reporting rules as a potentially profitable means of retaining and attracing new clients, says a report just issued by research firm Celent.

The nation’s stock exchanges and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority are filing proposals that will trigger halts in trading, market-wide, more quickly, the Securities and Exchange Commission said.

UBS AG announced that CEO Oswald Gruebel has resigned and that Sergio Ermotti will assume the top spot at the Swiss bank on an interim basis.

The Department of Labor announced Monday that it has pulled its current proposal for the definition of a fiduciary off the table. The agency will take up the issue in early 2012 and re-propose a fiduciary definition after more industry input.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has approved the proposal of a new rule designed “to prohibit certain material conflicts of interest between those who package and sell asset-backed securities (ABS) and those who invest in them.”

Investment advisor advocates are breathing easier after the Department of Labor announced Monday that it has pulled its current proposal on the definition of a fiduciary off the table. The agency will take up the issue in early 2012 and repropose a fiduciary definition after more industry input.

Investment advisor advocates are breathing easier after the Department of Labor announced Monday that it has pulled its current proposal on the definition of a fiduciary off the table. The agency will take up the issue in early 2012 and repropose a fiduciary definition after more industry input.

A group of regulators and lobbyists speaking at an industry conference this weekend laid out a possible timetable for the implementation of new Dodd-Frank-related regulations affecting financial planners.

The Investment Company Institute hosted the 2011 Tax and Accounting Conference September 11–14 at the JW Marriott Desert Springs in Palm Desert, California. Here are a few of the many people who made it the place the discuss tax, accounting, and regulatory developments. See the photo gallery here.

The unstable economic, political and investing climate dominated the sessions at this year's Investment Company Institute Tax and Accounting Conference.

PALM DESERT, CALIF.-"The past 60, 90 days have been the craziest that risk managers have ever faced in their careers, in terms of the national debate over the U.S. debt ceiling, market volatility and a host of other key risks asset managers are now facing," said Joseph A. Carrier, chief risk officer at Legg Mason.

SAN DIEGO--The FPA Experience 2011 annual conference here this week had one of the most colorful Americans in recent history as its first keynote speaker: Frank Abagnale Jr., the notorious imposter and check counterfeiter featured in the hit film, "Catch Me If You Can."