Litigation

Lina Maria Garcia, president and chief compliance officer of UCB Financial Advisers, has been charged for her alleged role in a fraud that funneled millions of dollars to her romantic partner’s parents.

Despite standout defamation awards, such as a $13.5 million payout to an ex-UBS rep, advisors and attorneys say firms are abusing their U5 power.

FINRA alleges that the firm caused clients to incur more than $2.9 million in trading costs.

Plaintiffs claim the firm’s high cash allocations juiced revenue for Schwab at the expense of client performance.

The barred ex-rep funneled clients’ money into a shell company he falsely called a sub advisor, according to investigators.

Three recent criminal cases raise concerns that wealth managers and regulators aren’t detecting alleged fraud quickly enough or disclosing basic information about crimes and disciplinary problems.

The rare move to set aside the regulator’s ruling came more than a decade after the rep ran into trouble by adding notes about his client into a software program.

The legal tussle represents the latest effort by a brokerage firm to enforce non-solicitation agreements against advisors.

Beverley Schottenstein accused the bank and the brokers of unauthorized trading of “multiple auto-callable structured notes and various other securities,” among other alleged misconduct.

The troubled alts manager’s charges will trigger many more arbitration proceedings and potential regulatory cases, plaintiff attorneys say.

Wealth managers acting as “downstream broker-dealers” allegedly made $187 million in commissions and other selling fees on GPB Capital investments.

But the regulator also ordered record payouts in 2020, including restitution through a self-reporting program that drew industry ire.

He allegedly told his employer that he had been diagnosed with cancer, and took medical leave from June until September. Wells Fargo notified him that he was being let go while he was away, according to the complaint.

The former J.W. Cole advisor’s practice allegedly sold more than $40 million worth of unsuitable and unregistered promissory notes.

Firms' legal brawls with departing advisors don’t exactly enhance their stature among clients. But there's reason to think this may become a thing of the past, writes recruiter Mark Elzweig.

The bank was seeking to overturn some $400,000 in attorney fees awarded to four advisors as part of a $2 million case.

Pressing the bank for examples of non-solicitation violations, the judge cut off JPMorgan’s attorney: “you are dancing all around my question.”

Mary Mack is expected to say that other employees were scared of Carrie Tolstedt, according to the bank’s regulators. Tolstedt, one of five former Wells executives facing civil charges in connection with the bank’s phony-accounts scandal, could be fined as much as $25 million.

The advisor is asking a judge to reconsider the order, saying he wasn’t given a chance to defend himself against accusations of violating a non-solicitation agreement.

The St. Louis-based firm claims its rival “instructs incoming recruits to compile client information from their former firm” as a matter of course.