Financial Industry Regulatory Authority news stories on Newser

Stanford Pulled in $5B While SEC Dithered

Kevin Spak — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 12:13:18 CDT

When the Securities and Exchange Commission sent probing questionnaires in 2005 to investors who’d bought certificates of deposit from Stanford Group, panic set in. “Then it all seemed to go away,” says one former Stanford employee. Concerns over jurisdiction stayed the SEC’s hand for almost 4 years, Bloomberg reports, while...

SEC Overlooked Stanford Fraud in 2003

Matt Cantor — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 09:49:02 CST

A former employee of Sir Allen Stanford warned the SEC in 2003 of an “illegal Ponzi scheme” involving his firms, but regulators brushed off the allegations, the Financial Times reports. The whistleblower also told another regulatory body that one of Stanford’s companies was “engaged in a Ponzi scheme to defraud...

Madoff Fund Made No Trades

Peter Fearon — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 02:35:16 CST

The fund run by Wall Street swindler Bernie Madoff apparently did not execute a single trade the entire time it was raking in billions of dollars in investment cash from unsuspecting clients, reports Reuters. Monthly statements of trades from Madoff were pure fiction that kept up appearances in the $50...

Obama's SEC Choice Faces Questions on Lawsuits

Jim O'Neill — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 08:04:00 CST

Mary Schapiro, Barack Obama’s choice to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission, has been accused in two lawsuits of making misleading statements to rush through the 2-year-old merger of two regulatory agencies that resulted in a 57% pay hike for herself, the New York Times reports. Schapiro is to begin...