The Wall Street Legal & Regulatory Feed
Securities Industry Commentator by Bill Singer Esq
May 11, 2018
Former Currency Trader Indicted for Participating in Antitrust Conspiracy (DOJ Press Release)
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-currency-trader-indicted-participating-antitrust-conspiracy
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-currency-trader-indicted-participating-antitrust-conspiracy
Former bank currency trader Akshay Aiyer was indicted in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York on one count of Conspiracy to Restrain Trade involving efforts to fix prices and rig bids and offers in Central and Eastern European, Middle Eastern, and African (CEEMEA) currencies, which were generally traded against the U.S. dollar and the euro. READ the FULL TEXT INDICTMENT
https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1061876/download
As set forth in part in the DOJ Press Release:
As set forth in part in the DOJ Press Release:
[F]rom at least as early as October 2010 through at least July 2013, Aiyer, along with other New York-based CEEMEA traders working for rival banks, participated in a conspiracy designed to suppress competition in order to increase each trader's profits and decrease each trader's losses. Aiyer and his co-conspirators carried out this agreement by engaging in near-daily conversations through private electronic chat rooms, telephone calls, and text messages, in which they exchanged trading positions, confidential customer information, planned pricing for customer orders, and other categories of competitively sensitive information. Aiyer and his co-conspirators then used this information to coordinate their live trading in CEEMEA currencies, including, at times, by certain traders refraining from trading against the others. Throughout the conspiracy, Aiyer and his co-conspirators took affirmative steps to conceal their anticompetitive behavior.
NEW RESEARCH BY CFP BOARD CENTER FOR FINANCIAL PLANNING EXPLORES LACK OF RACIAL AND ETHNIC DIVERSITY IN THE FINANCIAL PLANNING PROFESSION / Stakeholders Disagree on Root Causes but Agree on Path Forward (CFP Board Center for Financial Planning Press Release)
https://www.cfp.net/news-events/latest-news/2018/05/10/new-research-by-cfp-board-center-for-financial-planning-explores-lack-of-racial-and-ethnic-diversity-in-the-financial-planning-profession
https://www.cfp.net/news-events/latest-news/2018/05/10/new-research-by-cfp-board-center-for-financial-planning-explores-lack-of-racial-and-ethnic-diversity-in-the-financial-planning-profession
Self-reported data provided to CFP Board discloses that less than 3.5 percent of all 80,000 CFP professionals in the United States are black or Latino, which is significantly less than the representation of blacks and Latinos in the U.S. population. As set forth in part in the CFP Press Release:
- Lack of diversity is widely acknowledged across the financial planning profession, despite the majority seeing no difference in required skill set between whites and blacks (78 percent) or whites and Latinos (69 percent).
- When asked about the lack of diversity in the financial planning profession, survey respondents differ on their views of the profession:
- Among black and Latino prospective financial planners, 58 percent have never seriously thought of becoming a financial planner.
- However, existing black and Latino CFP professionals are highly satisfied with the profession. In fact, while the majority of CFP professionals are "very likely" to recommend financial planning to others as a career, black CFP professionals are most likely to recommend financial planning at 68 percent with Latino CFP professionals following closely at 59 percent.
Was That Stockbroker's Customer Blowing Steam Or Making A Complaint? (BrokeAndBroker.com Blog)
http://www.brokeandbroker.com/3969/finra-customer-complaint/
http://www.brokeandbroker.com/3969/finra-customer-complaint/
Listen . . . I'm not happy with my REIT investment . . . damn thing is illiquid . . . get me out of that dog as soon as you can. Okay, so, put your FINRA regulatory thinking caps on. If you are a stockbroker and you get the above in an email from a customer, would you deem the language to constitute a "complaint"? If you disclose that email on all of your industry records as a complaint, it will be seen as a mark against you because, well, you know, it's a customer complaint. What part of the email is actually complaining about anything that the stockbroker did versus the toxic nature of an investment? Does that matter? Should it matter?