OUR STOCKBROKER FRAUD CASES & INVESTIGATIONS

For over 40 years, Attorney Pearce and his staff members at The Law Offices of Robert Wayne Pearce, P.A. have worked on and continue to work on a wide variety of securities, commodities and investment disputes for investors arising out of stock brokerage, commodity brokerage, insurance and other financial service company’s’ employees, representatives and agents’ misconduct. We represent investors with securities and commodities law issues and a broad range of other practice areas in courtroom litigation, arbitration and mediation proceedings from offices in Boca Raton, Florida across the United States.

Our Florida Attorneys Handle Stockbroker Fraud Cases & Investigations Nationwide

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The most common investor claims have been claims for misrepresentation, failure to disclose important information, unsuitable recommendations, churning or excessive trading, and unauthorized trading in stocks, bonds, mutual funds and options in violation of federal and state statutes, common law and industry rules. However, in the past three years, most of our cases have arisen out of the latest wave of investment products, widespread misconduct with the same investment firms, branch offices and/or brokers. We are presently engaged in a number of cases and investigations involving not only the so-called “garden variety” stock, bond and option claims but many other types of misrepresented and mismanaged investment products and fraudulent schemes.

A brief description of some of our current stockbroker fraud Cases and Investigations with links to other pages within our website and Investors Rights Blog to help answer your questions and help you recover your losses is below:

Dec 28, 2019

72 (t) Early Retirement-Not for Me!

Section 72 (t) of the Internal Revenue Code is often touted as the secret to early retirement by brokers and financial advisors at free seminars and free lunches for employees of major corporations with profit-sharing and pension plans and 401(k)s. Presentations are made at upscale hotels and restaurants to induce the employees to retire or cash out their 401(k)s earlier than they might otherwise have done through a fairly unknown loophole that allows you to avoid the IRS penalty for early withdrawal. Employees are also promised that that they can cash in their retirement savings in their 40- 50s, reinvest the money, and live off the proceeds for the rest of their lives. But there is a lot more to early retirement benefits that just avoiding the IRS penalty.

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Dec 20, 2019

Private Placement/Reg. D Offerings

Private Placements have historically been the first source of financing of many of our greatest companies in America. Unfortunately, they have also been the number one source of investment fraud in America. The good news for victims of such frauds is that the attorneys at The Law Offices of Robert Wayne Pearce, P.A. have over 40 years experience investigating and prosecuting the perpetrators of these type of scams. These securities offerings are generally exempt from registration under the Federal and state securities laws if the issuer complies with the strict letter of the laws. Regulation D is just one of the exemptions that fraudsters commonly rely upon in an attempt to avoid disclosure of important facts relating to a company that might have influenced your investment decision. According to Attorney Pearce the private nature of the investment has given many unscrupulous brokers the opportunity to profit by selling away these unauthorized products due to many brokerage firms’ lack of supervision of their sales force. These investments pose the greatest number of risks to investors, have no liquidity, pay highest commissions, and have caused investors to lose billions of dollars. Representing clients throughout Florida and nationwide Although the private placement market is an important source for small business growth, investors must be wary of fraud, illiquidity, valuation figures, sales practice abuses, and marketing materials issued with inaccurate statements or omitted information pertinent to making a sound investment decision. The following are some of the primary risks associated with investing in private placements: Inadequate disclosure – private placement marketing materials are oftentimes issued with inaccurate statements or omitted information, which are necessary to make an informed investment decision. Lack of liquidity – Private placements are illiquid investments. Redemptions are usually restricted, which means that money can be locked up for months or even years. They are not publicly traded, and there is no ready secondary market where securities can be sold. Imprecise valuation – Since no ready market for private placements exists, valuation is left up to mathematical models that may use unreliable factors. Oftentimes, valuations are left up to personal estimates. Insufficient broker due diligence – broker-dealers that sell risky private placements should carry out rigorous due diligence procedures prior to offering them to their clients. However, too many broker-dealers are ignoring red flags that could prevent clients from suffering investment losses. If a broker-dealer lacks important information about a private placement issuer or its securities it is recommending, the broker-dealer must disclose this fact along with the risks that arise from a lack of information. However, a broker-dealer is not permitted to rely blindly upon an issuer for information about a company, nor may it rely on information given by the issuer or its counsel in the place of conducting its own reasonable investigation. Broker-dealers are required to exercise a high degree of care in investigating and verifying an issuer’s representations and claims. Even if a broker-dealer’s customers are sophisticated and well-educated investors, it does not obviate their duty to conduct a reasonable investigation. For more information about Private Placements/ Reg. D Offerings and our cases and investigations, click on the links below: GPB Capital Fund Investors: How Do You Recover Your GPB Capital Investment Losses? Investing in Private Placements/ Reg. D Offerings EquiAlt Private Placement Investments FREE INITIAL CONSULTATION WITH PRIVATE PLACEMENT AND REGULATION D INVESTMENT DISPUTE ATTORNEYS The Law Offices of Robert Wayne Pearce, P.A. understands what is at stake in Private Placement and Regulation D investment law matters and constantly strives to secure the most favorable possible result. Attorney Pearce provides a complete review of your case and fully explains your legal options. The firm works to ensure that you have all of the information necessary to make a sound decision before any action is taken in your case. For dedicated representation by a law firm with substantial experience in all kinds of securities, commodities and investment disputes, contact the firm by telephone at 561-338-0037 or toll free at 800-732-2889 or via e-mail.

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Oct 1, 2019

Attorneys Who Recover Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) and Exchange Traded Note (ETN) Investment Losses

Brokers and their investor clients may think they understand these investments but we at The Law Offices of Robert Wayne Pearce, P.A. are seeing and hearing otherwise. According to Attorney Pearce one widespread misconception is that they trade like open ended mutual funds; wrong, they trade like closed end funds, at a premium or discount to their actual net asset value. Many of the niche ETFs in the marketplace are very small and illiquid funds and consequently very volatile. Some ETFs and ETNs are heavily leveraged, utilize short trading strategies and invest in derivatives or hedge funds which compound the risk of loss. ETNs add credit risk of the issuers to the mix and so, the issuer due diligence is very important to an investment decision. Representing clients throughout Florida and nationwide ETFs have become more complex in recent years. Wall Street, in its efforts to generate more profits, has created numerous ETFs that utilize leverage and focus on narrower market sectors, which increases risk for investors. Therefore, investors considering ETFs should evaluate each ETF investment individually and not assume all ETFs are alike. Two types of ETFs that pose a significant risk to investors’ portfolios are leveraged and inverse leveraged funds. Leverage is a technique used in the financial industry to multiply investment gains by using borrowed money. If, however, an investment is generating losses, money can be lost at a multiple rate due to the amount of money owed. Leveraged ETFs seek to deliver multiples of the performance of an index by using borrowed funds. Inverse leveraged funds also use borrowed funds to achieve multiples of the opposite of the movement of an index by employing a range of investment strategies such as swaps, futures contracts, and other derivative investments. Thus, leveraged and inverse leveraged funds can lose many times their value in a single day, which could ultimately lead to significant losses for investors. Exchange-traded notes (ETNs) are unsecured debt obligations, usually issued by a bank or other type of financial institution, that trade on an exchange. They are different from traditional bonds in many ways. For example, ETNs usually do not make any interest payments to investors. Instead, the issuer purports to pay the holder of the ETN an amount determined by the performance of the underlying index on the ETN’s maturity date – 10, 30, or in some cases even 40 years from issuance – minus any fees. ETNs trade on exchanges throughout the day at prices determined by the market, similar to stocks. ETNs do not buy or hold assets to duplicate the performance of the underlying index, and they are not registered investment companies and therefore are not subject to the same registration, disclosure, and other regulatory requirements as most ETFs or mutual funds. For more information about ETFs and ETNs and our cases and investigations, click on the links below: UBS ETRAC Exchange Traded Note Investors: How Do You Recover Your UBS ETRAC Investment Losses? Investing in ETFs FREE INITIAL CONSULTATION WITH ETF AND ETN INVESTMENT DISPUTE ATTORNEYS The Law Offices of Robert Wayne Pearce, P.A. understands what is at stake in securities, commodities and ETF and ETN investment law matters and constantly strives to secure the most favorable possible result. Attorney Pearce provides a complete review of your case and fully explains your legal options. The firm works to ensure that you have all of the information necessary to make a sound decision before any action is taken in your case. For dedicated representation by a law firm with substantial experience in all kinds of securities, commodities and investment disputes, contact the firm by telephone at 561-338-0037 or toll free at 800-732-2889 or via e-mail.

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Sep 1, 2019

Note Linked Structured Products

The Law Offices of Robert Wayne Pearce, P.A. has had many cases involving these complex products made of a combination of securities, including notes (IOUs) linked to other assets such as a stock or basket of stocks or derivatives such as options which may be linked to other assets. According to Attorney Pearce, they have been misrepresented by many brokers as fixed income investments to lull retirees seeking to supplement their retirement income to invest in them. Many investors seeking safe investments were hooked by the false and misleading words “principal protected” in the names of the products, such as the Lehman Brothers’ “100% Principal Protected Notes” which, in reality, were no more than unsecured obligations of a company now in bankruptcy and nearly worthless. Representing clients throughout Florida and nationwide. Note-linked structured products were developed in the 1980s and sold primarily to institutional investors in the 1990s. In recent years, broker-dealers have increasingly targeted general retail investors. Although many of the note-linked products sold to retail investors are based upon “blue chip” and “household-name” stocks that comprise the S&P 500 or the NASDAQ -100 indexes, firm sales practices have created concerns about the manner in which the products are marketed to investors. Over $100 billion worth of note-linked structured products have been sold in recent years, often to senior investors looking to earn more interest while protecting their principal. In addition, they tend to pay higher commissions to brokers than conventional fixed income products do. FREE INITIAL CONSULTATION WITH “PRINCIPAL PROTECTED” NOTE INVESTMENT DISPUTE ATTORNEYS The Law Offices of Robert Wayne Pearce, P.A. understands what is at stake in Principal Protected Note investment law matters and constantly strives to secure the most favorable possible result. Attorney Pearce provides a complete review of your case and fully explains your legal options. The firm works to ensure that you have all of the information necessary to make a sound decision before any action is taken in your case. For dedicated representation by a law firm with substantial experience in all kinds of securities, commodities and investment disputes, contact the firm by telephone at 561-338-0037 or toll free at 800-732-2889 or via e-mail.

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Sep 1, 2019

Attorneys Who Recover UBS Puerto Rico Bond Fund Investment Losses

The Law Offices of Robert Wayne Pearce, P.A. is currently investigating the UBS Puerto Rico bond funds and seeking to recover losses of many investors residing in Puerto Rico. Many investors purchased the island’s debt through closed-end mutual funds, which in many cases held more than 70 percent of assets in Puerto Rican bonds and employed leverage. The steep decline in Puerto Rican bond prices is believed to be linked to worries about Puerto Rico’s shrinking economy, double-digit unemployment rate, and individual debt. Such fears ignited a wave of selling that briefly pushed some Puerto Rican bond yields to over 10 percent, which in turn caused bond prices to spiral downward.

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Aug 20, 2019

The Law Offices of Robert Wayne Pearce, P.A. Wins $6 Million Plus Award Against UBS and UBS Puerto Rico

In an arbitration proceeding against UBS Financial Services, Inc. (UBS) and UBS Financial Services, Inc. of Puerto Rico (UBS-PR), the Law Offices of Robert Wayne Pearce, P.A. won $4.25 million in compensatory damages plus interest at 6.25% from February 28, 2014 and costs of $170,000 for one of the firm’s clients last month. A summary of our clients’ allegations against UBS and UBS-PR are set forth below. If you or any family member received similar unsuitable recommendations from UBS-PR and its stockbrokers, or found yourself with an account overconcentrated in Puerto Rico municipal bonds and/or closed-end bond funds, or if you borrowed monies from UBS and used your investments as loan collateral, we may be able to help you recover your losses. Contact our office as soon as possible for a free consultation about your case. Time is of the essence!

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Aug 1, 2019

Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs)

Just as the real estate limited partnerships proliferated in the 1980s and 90s, non-traded real estate investment trusts (REITs) were the real estate investment du jour of the past decade. In many cases handled by The Law Offices of Robert Wayne Pearce, P.A., the sales solicitations were gross misrepresentations about the sponsors track record, market valuations, rates of return, liquidity, risks and fees. Unfortunately, Attorney Pearce says investors are now realizing they have been duped by the promoters of many non-traded REITs such as the Apple REITs, Cornerstone REITs and others. Representing clients throughout Florida and nationwide. Se habla español Investing in non-traded REITs is not for everyone. Investors must understand that these are complex and risky investments. First, REIT distributions are never guaranteed. The REIT Board of Directors decides when and the amount of any distribution. The lack of a publicly traded market creates illiquidity and valuation issues. Early redemption is usually limited and may be costly. Non-traded REITs can be expensive due to front-end fees and “issuer costs” that may be hidden from investors. Most non-traded REITs start out as blind pools, which have not yet specified the properties to be purchased. The diversification of properties within REITs is not always present which increases the risk of these investments. For more information about REITs and a complete list of our REIT cases and investigations, the links below: Our REIT Blog Archives FREE INITIAL CONSULTATION WITH REAL ESTATE INVESTMENT TRUST (REIT) INVESTMENT DISPUTE ATTORNEYS The Law Offices of Robert Wayne Pearce, P.A. understands what is at stake in securities, commodities and REIT investment law matters and constantly strives to secure the most favorable possible result. Attorney Pearce provides a complete review of your case and fully explains your legal options. The firm works to ensure that you have all of the information necessary to make a sound decision before any action is taken in your case. For dedicated representation by a law firm with substantial experience in all kinds of securities, commodities and investment disputes, contact the firm by telephone at 561-338-0037 or toll free at 800-732-2889 or via e-mail. We may also be able to arrange a meeting with you at offices located in Boca Raton, Fort Lauderdale, Miami and West Palm Beach, Florida and elsewhere.

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Jul 1, 2019

Investing in Hedge Funds

THE BASICS Hedge funds are similar to mutual funds in that they pool and invest investors’ money in an effort to earn a positive return. However, hedge funds have more flexible investment strategies than mutual funds. Many hedge funds seek to profit in all kinds of markets by using leverage, short-selling, and other speculative investment practices that are not typically used by mutual funds.

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Jun 1, 2019

Investing in Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs)

Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are mutual fund-like registered investment companies whose shares trade on a securities exchange. ETF shares typically trade throughout the day at prices established by the market, just like common stock issuances.

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