AWC/2009016157802/ 2011
2008011701203/ 2011
Gallagher acted as a principal of his member firm without being registered as such and the firm allowed Gallagher to act in an unregistered capacity.
Gallagher failed to adhere to the heightened supervisory requirements FINRA imposed and the agreements he entered into with three states; because of his controlling role at the firm and the transitory nature of supervision at the firm, he was able to sidestep the heightened supervision requirements. The firm failed to ensure that Gallagher’s heightened supervisory requirements from the states and FINRA were being followed, and failed to have a system to adequately monitor Gallagher’s compliance.
Gallagher was responsible for the firm adhering to the requirements to establish, maintain and enforce written supervisory control policies and ensuring the completion of an annual certification certifying that the firm had in place processes to establish, maintain, review, test and modify written compliance policies and WSPs to comply with applicable securities rules and regulations. The firm failed to conduct the analysis required to determine whether, as a producing manager, Gallagher should have been subjected to the heightened supervision requirements.
The firm failed to establish, maintain and enforce written supervisory control policies and procedures and failed to identify at least one principal who would establish, maintain and enforce written supervisory control policies and procedures. In addition, through Gallagher, the firm, failed to ensure that an annual certification was complete, certifying it had in place processes to establish, maintain, review, test and modify written compliance policies and WSPs to comply with applicable securities rules and regulations.
Moreover, FINRA found that the firm failed to report customer complaints against Gallagher and one customer-initiated lawsuit in which he was listed as a defendant.
Furthermore, the firm failed to make the necessary and required updates to Forms U4 and U5 for representatives to reflect customer complaints, arbitrations and lawsuits within the required 30 days.
Thefirm failed to conduct and evidence an independent test of its AML program, and failed to conduct and evidence an annual training program of its CE program for its covered registered persons.
While testifying at a FINRA on-the-record interview, Gallagher failed to respond to questions.
Gallagher willfully failed to timely amend his Form U4 with material facts. Gallagher appealed the decision to the NAC and the sanction is not in effect pending the appeal.
Vision Securities Inc.: Censured; Fined $60,000
Daniel James Gallagher: Barred
AWC/2009016262303/ 2011
AWC/2010023252701/ 2011
Acting through Erickson and Brewer, the Firm:
- sold the private placement offerings of a company formed exclusively to acquire and provide growth to its parent company and a limited liability company for which Brewer was a director, without disclosing to the investors material facts that:
- the parent company had defaulted on a $2.5 million loan,
- had reported an operating loss of $1,622,912 for one calendar year and an approximate operating loss of $4.5 million for another calendar year, and
- had defaulted on interest payments to note-holders.
- continued to sell the limited liability company’s private placement offering to new investors, knowing that it had defaulted on its interest payments to existing investors and without disclosing that material fact to new investors.
The firm sold the private placement offerings to non-accredited investors without providing them with the financial statements required under Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Rule 506, resulting in the loss of exemption from the registration requirements of Section 5 of the Securities Act of 1933. Because no registration statement was in effect for the offerings and the registration exemption was ineffective, the firm sold these securities in contravention of Section 5 of the Securities Act of 1933.
Acting through Erickson, the Firm conducted inadequate due diligence related to its sale of the offerings in that it failed to ensure the issuers had retained a custodian to handle certain investors’ qualified funds prior to accepting investment of Individual Retirement Account (IRA) funds into the offerings.
Ating through Erickson and Brewer, the Firm offered to sell and sold the company’s private placement offering by distributing to the public a private placement memorandum (PPM) containing unbalanced, unjustified, unwarranted or otherwise misleading statements; among other things, the PPM implied that the parent company was not experiencing financial difficulty and failed to disclose that it reported a significant loss one year. In addition, the investors in the company’s notes were not provided with financial statements for either the company or the parent company. Moreover, the PPM was misleading in that it failed to state clearly how offering proceeds would be used, lacked clarity regarding the relationship between the issuer and its affiliates, and failed to provide the basis for claims made regarding the performance expectations of the issuer or its affiliates.
Furthermore, the firm failed to establish adequate written supervisory procedures related to its sales of private placement offerings, in that the firm’s procedures failed to require that financial statements be provided to investors when private placement offerings are sold to non-accredited investors, pursuant to SEC Rule 506.
The Firm allowed Brewer to be actively engaged in managing the firm’s securities business without being registered as a principal and a representative although Brewer signed and submitted an attestation to FINRA stating he would not be actively engaged in the management of the firm’s securities business until he completed registration as a representative and principal. Among other things, Brewer reviewed and revised the firm’s recruitment brochure, approved offer letters to prospective firm registered representatives, dictated the structure of new representatives’ compensation, including the level of commissions and loan repayment terms, and instructed firm personnel to send private placement offering documents to prospective investors.
The firm maintained the registrations for individuals who were not active in the firm’s investment banking or securities business or were no longer functioning as registered representatives.
The Firm conducted a securities business on a number of days even though it had negative net capital on each of those dates. The firm’s net capital deficiencies were caused by its failure to classify contributions from the parent company as liabilities after the firm returned the contributions to the parent company within a one-year period of having received them, and improperly treating its assets as allowable even though all of its assets had been encumbered as security for a loan agreement the parent company executed. Moreover, the Firm had inaccurate general ledgers, trial balances and net capital computations, and filed inaccurate Financial and Operational Uniform Single
Brewer Financial Services, LLC: Expelled
Adam Gary Erickson (Principal) and Steven John Brewer: Barred
AWC/2009016138801/ 2011
AWC/2009016262301/ 2011
- Accredited Investor
- Affirmative Determination
- AML
- Annual Compliance Certification
- Annual Compliance Meeting
- Annuities
- Annuity
- Appeal
- ATM
- Away Accounts
- Bank
- Bankruptcy
- Banks
- Best Efforts Offering
- Blank Forms
- Borrowed
- Borrowing
- Broadcast
- Campaign Contributions
- CCO
- CDs
- Check
- Check Kiting
- Checks
- Churning
- CIP
- Clearing Agreement
- CMO
- Commissions
- Communications
- Computers
- Concentration
- Confidential Customer Information
- Contingency Offering
- Continuing Education
- Conversion
- Corporate Credit Card
- Correspondence
- Credit Cards
- Customer Protection Rule
- Debit Card
- Deceased
- Discretion
- Do Not Call
- Due Diligence
- EIA
- Elderly
- Electronic Communications
- Electronic Storage
- Embezzled
- Escrow
- Estate
- ETF
- Expenses
- Expulsion
- False Statements
- Felony
- Finder Fees
- FINOP
- FOCUS
- Foreign Language
- FOREX
- Forgery
- Form ADV
- Freely-Tradable
- Futures
- Gifts
- Guaranteeing Against Losses
- Hedge Fund
- Heightened Supervision
- Impersonation
- Insider Trading
- Inspections
- Installment Plan Contracts
- Instant Messaging
- Insurance
- Internet
- Investment Advisor
- IRA
- Joint Account
- Life Insurance
- LOA
- Loan
- Loaning
- Margin
- Mark-Up Mark-Down
- Material Change Of Business
- Membership Agreement
- Minimum Contingency
- Money Laundering
- Mortgage
- Mutual Funds
- NAC
- Net Capital
- NSF
- Options
- OSJ
- Outside Accounts
- Outside Business Activities
- Parking
- PIPE
- Ponzi
- Power Of Attorney
- Private Placement
- Private Securities Transaction
- Producing Manager
- Production Quota
- Promissory Notes
- Proprietary Traders
- Public Appearances
- Referral Fees
- Reg D
- Reg U
- Regulation 60
- Regulation S-P
- REIT
- Research
- Reverse Mortgage
- RIA
- Rule 8210
- SAR
- SBA
- Scripts
- Shadowing
- Sharing Profits
- Signature
- Solicited
- Statutory Disqualification
- Stock To Cash
- Suitability
- Supervision
- Supervisory System
- Suspense Account
- Testing
- Third Party Vendor
- Time And Price Discretion
- Trading
- Trading Limits
- Trading Volume
- Trust Account
- Trustee
- U.S. Treasuries
- UIT
- Unauthorized Transaction
- Universal Lease Programs
- Unregistered Person
- Unregistered Principal
- Unregistered RRs
- Unregistered Securities
- Unregistered Supervisor
- Variable Annuity
- Variable Insurance
- Viaticals
- Website
- Willfully
- WSP
- WSPs