- Chief Compliance Officer and VP of Legal Affairs, Arrow Electronics
By 
Aaron Nicodemus2024-09-05T18:19:00
Broker-dealer Nationwide Planning Associates and two affiliated investment advisers impeded potential whistleblowers from reporting misconduct to the Securities and Exchange Commission and have agreed to settle the charges for a combined $240,000.
New Jersey-based Nationwide Planning Associates will pay $70,000, investment adviser NPA Asset Management will pay $160,000, and state-registered investment adviser Blue Point Strategic Wealth Management will pay $10,000, the SEC said Wednesday in a press release.
The firms asked 11 retail clients to sign confidentiality agreements in connection with payments made by the entities to the clients’ investment accounts. The agreements contained “provisions that impeded clients from reporting potential securities law violations to the SEC by permitting communications only where the SEC first initiated an inquiry,” the SEC said.
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A federal court in Florida has lashed out at federal whistleblower programs by dismissing a mundane False Claims Act case against a medical practice on the grounds that the qui tam provisions of the FCA are unconstitutional.
Seven public companies will pay a total of $3 million in fines for requiring employees to sign agreements containing provisions that impeded their ability to report misconduct to the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Singapore-based commodity trading company Trafigura will pay $55 million to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to settle charges related to fraud, manipulation, and impeding whistleblower communications with the agency.
Capital One promised very high interest rates on millions of savings accounts but the bank didn’t deliver, losing customers more than $2 billion, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau alleged.
Robinhood, a disruptive force in the market for Main Street investors but also a serial offender of securities laws, will pay a total of $45 million to settle numerous violations of SEC rules and regulations by two of its broker-dealers.
A broker-dealer subsidiary of Toronto-based BMO Financial Group will pay nearly $41 million in penalties to the Securities and Exchange Commission to settle allegations that its traders issued misleading disclosures on bonds for three years, causing $19 million in harm to its customers.
