Investment Adviser

Alleging that he repeatedly placed illegal trades using confidential information, the Securities and Exchange Commission recently charged an investment bank employee with engaging in insider trading.

The trades the employee made approximately $140,000 from trades he initiated in advance of deals for which the bank was providing investment advisory services.

Find out more about the charges and what is being required of the defendant.

Two of three panel judges of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a lower court’s ruling on the Department of Labor’s (DOL) fiduciary rule, vacating the rule in its entirety.

The ruling signals victory for a coalition of financial and business trade groups who challenged the 2016 rule, shortly after President Barack Obama’s administration finalized it.

Find out what details the judges offered relating to their opinions on the matter.

The House recently passed bipartisan bills that could benefit financial institutions and investors. The bills include provisions that would amend the Volcker Rule, restrict federal regulators from engaging in activities previously permitted under the Operation Choke Point initiative and help small- and mid-sized mortgage lenders.

The bills are H.R. 2706, dubbed the “Financial Institution Customer Protection Act,” H.R.3971, known as the “Community Institution Mortgage Relief Act,” and H.R. 3093, the “Investor Clarity and Bank Parity Act.”

Find out more about the three pieces of legislation. 

The Department of Labor’s proposal to delay the applicability of amendments to its fiduciary rule has been approved by the Office of Management and Budget.

The delay, noted in a proposed rule published in the Federal Register on Aug. 31, would delay the end of the transition period by 18 months.

Make sure you are up to date on what this delay would mean if it would be finalized.  

Anyone banking on a redefining of what a “fiduciary” is as of April 10 likely will have to wait at least 60 days more while the Department of Labor (DOL) examines its final rule altering the word’s definition under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) and the Internal Revenue Code of 1986.

The DOL proposed a rule to delay the applicability of the new rule for 60 days for review purposes, in accordance with a presidential memorandum directing the department to do so.

Read on to learn more about the rule and what the delay means. 

The New York-based company Forcerank, LLC recently agreed to pay a $50,000 penalty after the Securities and Exchange Commission found that its mobile phone app violated certain aspects of the Dodd-Frank Act.

Described as “fantasy sports for stocks,” the SEC said the app was in conflict with the Securities Act and the Securities Exchange Act.

Read on to learn more about how the company’s app violated Dodd-Frank. 

Before PayPal was handed an enforcement action by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in May 2015, the investment community knew there was a chance it would happen. How? Because the company disclosed the CFPB’s investigation into its practices as a material event in a quarterly filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

But when does a company need to disclose information?

Wells Fargo was asked why it did not disclose the status of its investigation into fraudulent practices before an enforcement action was made public. Read on for details of what makes a “material event.”