Law and legal issues

A FINRA arbitration panel sided with a claimant who contended Wells and one of its advisors should have recognized telltale signs of elder fraud when their client decided to give away tens of thousands of shares of Aflac stock.

From LPL Financial's legal challenges to a continuing education scam that involved more than 60 brokers, these are the stories our readers flocked to in 2024.

Edward Turley, a once high-flying advisor booted from the industry in 2022, is at the center of a dozen client settlements costing JPMorgan upward of $63 million.

Michael Bernier oversaw roughly $165 million in client assets at Canter Strategic Wealth Management, a firm with $300 million under management. Then he left to join LPL.

Industry watchdogs stayed busy trying to root out elder fraud and off-channel communications while plaintiffs lawyers' questioned firms' sweeps policies and regulators' basic authority.

FINRA charges restitution but forgoes punitive fines for the three firms after crediting them for cooperating in its investigation.

Jefferies was among a group of firms cited by the SEC in its recent sweeping investigations into illegal "off channel" communications.

Regulators accused UBS of not doing enough to monitor 22 brokers who generated commissions and sales concessions of syndicate preferred stocks.

While at Schwab, Roberto Ortega worked with clients whose accounts held more than $1.5 billion. A lawsuit seeks to bar him from soliciting their business for his new employer.

The case stems from Raymond James' recruitment of the $2.8 billion Wise Advisor Group from Baird, which also landed a penalty for a broker protocol violation.

The rival firms will pay for a forensic consultant to preserve evidence of transferred confidential data while they await FINRA arbitration.

The wirehouse is accused of not doing enough to prevent employees of its Smith Barney unit from making unauthorized transfers.

A former wealth manager contends she was unfairly denied disability payments after fibromyalgia and other health complaints forced her to stop working in 2022.

Court decisions have opened up a whole new world of tax worries for college student athletes.

The Texas AG leads a lawsuit against BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street, alleging asset managers' influence on coal production led to higher energy prices.

Former Western Asset Management co-Chief Investment Officer Ken Leech was charged with engaging in an alleged "cherry-picking" trading scheme.

Compliance experts think the costs of going along with a sweeping investigation are ignored by regulators touting the benefits of cooperation.

The bulk of the haul came from the bankrupt crypto company Terraform Labs. But Morgan Stanley, LPL Financial, Ameriprise and other big firms also came under scrutiny.

FINRA must let the SEC weigh in before it can cast out one of its members, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia found.

The SEC Chair oversaw a sweeping rulemaking agenda that drew resistance from many advisory and brokerage industry representatives.