Banking giant Wachovia Corp. will pay $160 million to settle a federal investigation into laundering of illegal drug profits through Mexican exchange houses in the largest case of its kind ever brought against a U.S. bank, prosecutors said Wednesday.
The nascent secondary market for annuities and their guaranteed benefits could be stunted as the result of a vote last week by state insurance regulators to allow carriers to terminate the annuity benefits if a client sells the contract.
A former branch manager who headed one of the largest groups of reps at FSC Securities Corp. is suing the broker-dealer after what he claims was a thwarted and contentious attempt to buy the business from parent AIG Advisor Group earlier last year.
A Tennessee representative formerly affiliated with AIG Financial Advisors Inc. spent time making voodoo dolls of his victims to ward off their damaging testimony, prosecutors said.
Regulators shut four banks from California to Florida on Friday, boosting to 20 the number of U.S. bank failures this year following the 140 closures last year in the worst financial climate in decades.
The Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards Inc on Friday placed Oren Eugene Sullivan Jr. under interim suspension, keeping the ex-broker from using its credentials.
Bowing to the political clout of the insurance and securities industries, the Financial Planning Coalition has given up its effort to get Congress to establish a definition of financial planning that would have brought thousands of insurance and securities brokers and money managers under the sway of an oversight board that the FPC seeks to create.
In the face of opposition from influential insurance and securities industry groups, the Financial Planning Coalition has moderated its ambition to get Congress to establish a broad regulatory scheme for financial planners.
The Securities and Exchange commissioner says "vague and confusing" language describing target date funds led to investor confusion when investments performed poorly during the market downturn.
The self regulatory organization ruled that Schwab's human resources group committed “gross negligence, and contributed to the damages suffered” by a former employee who claimed the brokerage had made defamatory comments on his termination notice.
A former financial adviser from Plymouth, Mass., has pleaded guilty in federal court to embezzling $4.3 million from his clients and using the money for personal expenses, including to make mortgage payments and pay his daughter's college tuition.
Securities and Exchange Commission investigators were trying to persuade supervisors to protect billionaire Mark Cuban's privacy when they internally e-mailed photos demonstrating his fame, the agency said.
Citigroup Inc. said it is repaying $20 billion in bailout money it received from the Treasury Department, in a bid to reduce government influence over the banking giant.
A Federal judge refuses to vacate an award from June 2009 arbitration ruling.
Adviser Frank Congemi is running radio spots this week lambasting government officials and Wall Street firms for the financial crisis, which he calls the “largest economic crime in history.”
Financial advisers and service providers working with retirement plans are trying to avert the possibility of coming under greater regulation by an existing or new government agency.
Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman has been put on the hot seat by the company's institutional investors over its compensation policies, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.
The requirement that brokers who provide advice be regulated as registered investment advisers may be dropped from financial-reform legislation being considered by the Senate Banking Committee, according to consumer groups and state securities regulators.
