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…
Continue reading ›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…
Continue reading ›On August 11, 2017, the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) filed a Complaint against Defendants David R. Greenlee, David A. Stewart, Jr., and Richard “Ric” P. Underwood, in connection with various oil limited partnerships and joint ventures. Specifically, the SEC has alleged that the Defendants engaged in a fraudulent scheme whereby at least $15 million…
Continue reading ›The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) has filed two recent enforcement actions that may signal a crackdown on variable annuity (VA) misconduct this year, continuing a 2016 trend of high fines related to VA sales in 2016. In the first disciplinary proceeding, FINRA reportedly suspended broker Cecil E. Nivens for two years and ordered the…
Continue reading ›Recently, the North American Securities Administrators Association (“NASAA”) released a timely survey entitled ‘Seniors & Financial Exploitation’ (the “Survey”). The Survey, which was conducted among NASAA’s membership of 67 state, provincial and territorial securities administrators in all 50 States, as well as the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, in addition to the U.S. Virgin…
Continue reading ›Business Development Corporation of America (“BDCA”) is a non-traded business development company headquartered in New York, New York. As a business development company (“BDC”), BDCA focuses on providing flexible financing solutions to various middle market companies (e.g., BDCA extended a second lien term loan in August 2016 to the well-known “fast casual” restaurant chain, Boston…
Continue reading ›CNL Growth Properties, Inc. (“CNL Growth”) is a publicly registered non-traded real estate investment trust (“REIT”) based in Orlando, FL. Because CNL Growth is registered with the SEC, the non-traded REIT was permitted to sell securities to the investing public at large, including numerous unsophisticated investors who bought shares through the initial public offering (“IPO”)…
Continue reading ›Investors in promissory notes of Credit Nation Capital, LLC (“CN Capital”) and affiliated companies may have viable legal claims based upon allegations in cases filed by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”). The SEC filed a lawsuit in 2015 alleging that CN Capital and affiliates were engaged in fraud. The companies allegedly lost…
Continue reading ›Recently, the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) initiated an action against 40-year old Leon Vaccarelli by filing a sixteen-page complaint (“SEC Complaint”) in federal court in New Haven, CT. The SEC is alleging that Mr. Vaccarelli, based in Waterbury, CT, engaged in operating a Ponzi Scheme for more than four years, during which time he…
Continue reading ›Investors who have suffered losses due to the recommendation of a stockbroker or financial advisor to invest in the hedge fund Astenbeck Master Commodities Fund II (“Astenbeck II”) may be able to recover losses through FINRA arbitration if the investment recommendation was unsuitable, or the nature of the investment was misrepresented by the advisor. According…
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