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If your broker or financial advisor recommended an oil and gas investment(s), and you have sustained losses in connection with that energy product(s), you may be able to recover your losses through FINRA arbitration. According to data and statistics disseminated in February 2017 by Oilfield Services counsel at Haynes and Boone, LLP, a total of…

Recently, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (“FINRA”) has devoted significant regulatory oversight to one financial product that is rife with potential for abuse: the variable annuity (“VA”). As a general rule, annuities are treated as insurance products. Accordingly, annuities are subject to regulation at the State level. Specifically, each State maintains a guarantee fund that…

FINRA fined Carolina Financial Securities, LLC (“CFS”) of Brevard, North Carolina $60,000 and served it with a Letter of Caution in a case involving allegations that CFS made material misrepresentations and omissions in connection with the sale of securities. FINRA also found that that the firm recommended securities- certain senior secured notes- to customers without…

The State of Colorado has reportedly indicted former LPL financial advisor Sonya D. Camarco on six counts of securities fraud and seven counts of theft for allegedly diverting more than $850,000 in customer money for her personal use between January 2013 and May. Ms. Camarco reportedly was terminated by LPL Financial in August 2017for “depositing…

Investors in VGTel, Inc. (“VGTel”) (OTC PINK: VGTL) may be able to recover their losses through initiating a securities arbitration proceeding with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (“FINRA”) if they were sold VGTel shares via misrepresentations or if a stockbroker or financial advisor made an unsuitable recommendation to purchase VGTel shares. VGTel has been the…

Summit Healthcare REIT Inc. (“Summit”), a publicly registered non-traded real estate investment trust, has recommended to shareholders that they reject a third-party tender offer by MacKenzie Realty Capital to purchase shares for $1.34 a share. The REIT estimates its net asset value per share as $2.53, and therefore says that the $1.34 a share offer…

Breitburn Energy Partners, L.P. (“Breitburn”) is an independent oil and gas exploration company, headquartered in Los Angeles, CA, with a corporate office in Houston, TX. Structured as a master limited partnership (“MLP”), Breitburn and its subsidiaries are engaged in the acquisition, exploitation, and development of properties in the United States for purposes of oil and…

On July 16, 2017, the Wall Street Journal published an article – From $2 Billion to Zero: A Private-Equity Fund Goes Bust in the Oil Patch – discussing the financial distress besetting Houston based EnerVest Ltd. (“EnerVest”), a private equity firm focused on energy investments. Essentially, the article discussed how falling oil prices (to a…

Investors who have lost money in Woodbridge Wealth or in any of the Woodbridge Mortgage Funds may be able to pursue recovery of any losses through securities litigation or arbitration. Brokerage firms that sell private placements such as the Woodbridge funds must conduct due diligence on the investment before recommending it to their clients. The…

Oil and gas private placements use some of investors’ money to drill and operate oil and gas wells. Oil and gas DPPs are sponsored and managed either by investment companies or oil and gas exploration companies, each of which may suffer from its own conflicts of interests in structuring the investments due to the very…