Citizen Uprising

COMPANY
Deutsche Bank AG
Ameriprise
GTCR
The Goldman Sachs Group
The Goldman Sachs Group
UBS Wealth Management
Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and Company, LP
The Goldman Sachs Group
Sanford C. Bernstein and Co., LLC
Itau BBA USA Securities
Apollo Management Holdings, LP
Fidelity Investments
Deutsche Bank
Morgan Stanley

Data taken from Wikipedia and Bloomberg.

Ameriprise Financial, Inc.
Ameriprise Financial, Inc. is an American diversified financial services company. Ameriprise Financial engages in business through its subsidiaries, providing financial planning, products and services, including wealth management, asset management, insurance, annuities and estate planning.

Ameriprise Financial is the largest financial planning company in the United States and is among the 25 largest asset managers in the world. It is ranked 246 in the 2011 Fortune 500.

ISSUES

• Securities America was fined $5.4 million in 2003 for letting a broker work under a false name in its Orlando office and allegedly make bogus investments. In 2005, Ameriprise agreed to pay a $12.3 million to settle NASD charges relating to favorable treatment allegedly given to some mutual funds in exchange for brokerage business.
• In mid-2005, the State of New Hampshire reached a $7.4 million settlement with American Express Financial Advisors, alleging the company had violated the law by rewarding their financial advisers for recommending underperforming in-house mutual funds to clients.
• Also in 2005, Ameriprise Financial entered into a $15 million settlement with the SEC for charges of market timing. The Minnesota Department of Commerce levied $2 million in fines for similar market timing violations. The National Association of Securities Dealers fined Ameriprise an additional $12.3 million for unsuitable share sales. Ameriprise, having become a separate company, had not revealed which funds were timed, or the names of the people involved and the exact nature of the disciplinary action taken. Morningstar temporarily reduced the stewardship grade for Ameriprise’s funds, although it did not impact the fund’s overall star ratings from that firm.
• In 2006, the NASD threatened to suspend the company for failing to pay an arbitration award to a former broker.
• In September 2006, Securities America reached a $16.3 million settlement with a group of ExxonMobil Corporation retirees for failing to supervise an associated broker.
• On July 11, 2007, the NASD fined Securities America $375,000 for improperly sharing directed brokerage commissions from a mutual fund company with a former Securities America broker. Another NASD arbitration panel awarded $9.3 million to three retiredAmerican Airlines pilots against Securities America and a formerly associated broker for allegedly mishandling their savings. Other airline pilots have arbitration claims pending.
• On July 10, 2009, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced an enforcement action against Ameriprise for receiving millions of dollars in undisclosed revenue sharing as a condition for selling certain real estate investment trusts (REITs) to its brokerage customers. Ameriprise agreed to pay $17.3 million to settle the SEC’s charges, however the period in which SEC states the violations took place were prior to the spinoff from American Express.
• On April 15, 2011, Securities America, Inc. (SAI) and its holding company, Securities America Financial Corporation, entered into settlement agreements related to the sale of private placement securities issued by Medical Capital and Provident Royalties that resulted in a $118 million pre-tax charge in the first quarter of 2011. The charge is in addition to a $40 million pre-tax charge in the fourth quarter of 2010.
• On July 12, 2009 an advisor filed a complaint under 18 USC 1514(a) the whistleblower provisions of the Sarbanes Oxley Act. The case was filed with OSHA. OSHA determined the advisor was an independent contractor and not an employee. The advisor was referred to FINRA Arbitration. The Finra arbitration panel dismissed the case without a hearing- 4 years later. All of the advisors clients were transferred to other advisors and his practice was destroyed. He had no recourse to sell the equity in his practice in spite of a franchise agreement. The case is set to go before a Federal Appeals judge next month. See: DOL-ALJ website, case lookup, Ameriprise Financial. 2015 case dismissed. 2016 case now set for hearings.
• Ameriprise has settled other whistleblower complaints rather than have the facts reveled in public hearings. See: Loscalso v. Ameriprise.
• Ameriprise also has a class action lawsuit and an SEC investigation into the use of WRAP accounts.

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Apollo Management Holdings, LP
Apollo Global Management, LLC is an American private equity firm, founded in 1990
Products: Private equity funds, credit funds, real estate funds,alternative Investment,Leveraged buyouts, Growth capital, Venture capital

As of August 2015, Apollo managed over US$162 billion of investor commitments across its private equity, credit and real estate funds and other investment vehicles making it one of the largest alternative investment management firms globally.  Among the most notable companies currently owned by Apollo are Claire’s, Caesars Entertainment Corporation, Norwegian Cruise Line, Novitex Enterprise Solutions, and CORE Media Group (American Idol).

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CME Group
CME Group Inc. (Chicago Mercantile Exchange & Chicago Board of Trade) is an American futures company and one of the largest options and futures exchanges.
Products: derivatives and futures exchanges

CME owns and operates large derivatives and futures exchanges in Chicago and New York City, as well as online trading platforms. In 2014, it gained regulatory approval to open a derivatives exchange in London. It also owns the Dow Jones stock and financial indexes, and CME Clearing Services, which provides settlement and clearing of exchange trades. The exchange-traded derivative contracts include futures and options based on interest rates, equity indexes, foreign exchange, energy, agricultural commodities, rare and precious metals, weather, and real estate. It has been described by The Economist as “The biggest financial exchange you have never heard of.”

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Deutsche Bank / Deutsche Bank AG
Deutsche Bank AG is a German global banking and financial services company
Products:  consumer banking, corporate banking, finance and insurance, investment banking, mortgage loans, private banking, private equity, savings, Securities, asset management, wealth management, Credit cards

In 2009, Deutsche Bank was the largest foreign exchange dealer in the world with a market share of 21 percent.  The bank offers financial products and services for corporate and institutional clients along with private and business clients. Services include sales, trading, research and origination of debt and equity; mergers and acquisitions (M&A); risk management products, such as derivatives, corporate finance, wealth management, retail banking, fund management, and transaction banking.  According to the Scorpio Partnership Global Private Banking Benchmark 2014 the company had US $384.1 billion of assets under management, an increase of 13.7% on 2013.

ISSUES:

On 23 April 2015, Deutsche Bank agreed to a combined US$2.5 billion in fines – a US$2.175 billion fine by American regulators, and a €227 million penalty by British authorities – for its involvement in the Libor scandal uncovered in June 2012. The company also pled guilty to wire fraud, acknowledging that at least 29 employees had engaged in illegal activity. It will be required to dismiss all employees who were involved with the fraudulent transactions. However, no individuals will be charged with criminal wrongdoing. In a Libor first, Deutsche Bank will be required to install an independent monitor. Commenting on the fine, Britain’s Financial Conduct Authority director Georgina Philippou said “This case stands out for the seriousness and duration of the breaches … One division at Deutsche Bank had a culture of generating profits without proper regard to the integrity of the market. This wasn’t limited to a few individuals but, on certain desks, it appeared deeply ingrained.” The fine represented a record for interest rate related cases, eclipsing a $1.5 billion Libor related fine to UBS, and the then-record $450 million fine assessed to Barclays earlier in the case. The size of the fine reflected the breadth of wrongdoing at Deutsche Bank, the bank’s poor oversight of traders, and its failure to take action when it uncovered signs of abuse internally.

On 5 November 2015, Deutsche Bank was ordered to pay US $258 million (€237.2 million) in penalties imposed by the New York State Department of Financial Services and the United States Federal Reserve Bank after the bank was caught doing business with Burma, Libya, Sudan, Iran, and Syria which were under US sanctions at the time. According to the US federal authorities, Deutsche Bank handled US$27,200-clearing transactions valued at more than US$10.86 billion (€9.98 billion) to help evade US sanctions between early 1999 until 2006 which are done on behalf of Iranian, Libyan, Syrian, Burmese, and Sudanese financial institutions and other entities subject to US sanctions, including entities on the Specially Designated Nationals by the Office of Foreign Assets Control.

In response to the penalties, the bank will pay US$200 million (€184 million) to the NYDFS while the rest (US$58 million; €53.3 million) will go to the Federal Reserve. In addition to the payment, the bank will install an independent monitor, fire six employees who were involved in the incident, and ban three other employees from any work involving the bank’s US-based operations. The bank is still under investigation by the US Justice Department and NYDFS into possible sanctions violations relating to the 2014-15 Ukrainian crisis and its activities within Russia.

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Fidelity Investments
FMR LLC (Fidelity Management and Research) or Fidelity Investments is an American multinational financial services corporation. It is the second largest mutual fund and financial services group in the world.
Products:  Investment management, mutual funds, online brokerage

Fidelity Investments manages a large family of mutual funds, provides fund distribution and investment advice services, as well as providing discount brokerage services, retirement services, wealth management, securities execution and clearance, life insurance and a number of other services.

As of 31 December 2014, Fidelity Investments’ assets under management stood at $2.03 trillion.

ISSUES:

U.S. brokerages regulator NASD fined four FMR-affiliated broker-dealers $3.75 million for alleged registration, supervision and e-mail retention violations in February 2007. The broker-dealers settled without admitting or denying the charges.

Fidelity Brokerage was ordered to pay $2 million to settle charges that employees altered and destroyed documents in 21 of its 88 branch offices from January 2001 to July 2002. Fidelity has internal inspections every year to make sure it is complying with federal regulations. The Securities and Exchange Commission accused that Fidelity management pressured branch employees to have perfect inspections and gave notice of the inspections and that at least 62 employees destroyed or altered potentially improper documents maintained at branch offices including new account applications, letters of authorization and variable annuity forms.

In May 2007, NASD fined two Fidelity broker-dealers $400,000 for preparing and distributing misleading sales literature promoting Fidelity’s Destiny I and II Systematic Investment Plans, which were sold primarily to U.S. military personnel. As part of the settlement, for the next five years, the two broker-dealers – Fidelity Investments Institutional Services Company, Inc. of Smithfield, RI and Fidelity Distributors Corporation of Boston – were required to notify Destiny Plan holders who want to increase their investments in existing Destiny Plans that additional shares of the underlying fund can be purchased outside the Destiny Plans without paying the additional creation and sales charges of up to 50 percent on the first year’s payments.

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GoldenTree Asset Management
GoldenTree Asset Management, LP is an employee owned hedge fund sponsor. The firm primarily provides its services to pooled investment vehicles. It also manages accounts of corporations and pension and profit sharing plans. The firm manages separate client-focused equity and fixed income portfolios. It invests in the public equity, fixed income, and alternative markets of the United States and the United Kingdom. The firm primarily invests in value stocks of companies. For its fixed income investments, the firm invests in bank loans and high yield bonds with opportunistic leverage. It invests in real estate for its alternative investments.

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GTCR LLC
GTCR LLC is a private equity firm, founded by Republican Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner, focused on leveraged buyout, leveraged recapitalization, growth capital and rollup transactions. Since 1980, GTCR has invested more than $10 billion in over 200 companies.
Products: Leveraged buyout, Rollup

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Itaú Securities
Itaú Securities is an American securities firm based in New York City, New York, The United States. It is a broker dealer (est: 2002) who specialize in Brazilian securities to US institutional investors. The companies market capitalization is US$ 41.7 billion.

Itaú’s shares are traded on The American stock exchange The New York Stock Exchange. The company is regulated by the NASD and has a net capital of U$ 30MM.

Itaú Corretora and Itaú BBA, the investment banking arm of the group, participated actively in recent Brazilian IPO’s and block-trade operations, such as Natura, GOL, PIBB, ALL, WEG, Braskem, EdB, Tractebel, Vivax, Gafisa, Totvs, Dasa, Duratex, Eletropaulo, Profarma, Terna and Perdigao consolidating its position as one of the leading distributors in the Brazilian capital markets. Banco Itaú Holding Financeira (ADR: ITU) is a multiple bank under the supervision of the Central Bank of Brazil and one of the largest financial institutions in Brazil.

Sérgio Millerman, and Thomas Deocoene are the two Presidents of today’s Itau.

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Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co.
KKR & Co. L.P. (formerly known as Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co.) is an American multinational private equity firm, specializing in leveraged buyouts, headquartered in New York City. The firm sponsors and manages private equity investment funds. A pioneer in the leveraged buyout industry, the firm has completed over $400 billion of private equity transactions since its inception.
Products: Management buyouts, Leveraged finance, Venture capital, Growth capital

KKR invests primarily through leveraged buyouts as well as growth capital investments (including “PIPE” investments in public companies). It has traditionally specialized in private equity investments, focusing on specific industry sectors where the firm has created nine dedicated investment groups. The industries in which KKR has developed a specialization include:^[9]

• Chemicals
• Consumer products
• Energy & natural resources
• Financial services
• Health care
• Industrial
• Media and communications
• Retail
• Technology

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Morgan Stanley
Morgan Stanley is an American multinational financial services corporation headquartered in the Morgan Stanley Building, Midtown Manhattan, New York City
Products: Investment banking, asset management, commercial banking, prime brokerage,investment management,
retail brokerage, commodities

Morgan Stanley is an American multinational financial services corporation that, through its subsidiaries and affiliates, provides securities products and services to customers, including corporations, governments, financial institutions, and individuals. The company operates in three business segments: Institutional Securities, Global Wealth Management Group, and Asset Management.

ISSUES:

In 2003, Morgan Stanley agreed to pay $125 million in order to settle its portion of a $1.4 billion settlement brought by Eliot Spitzer, the Attorney General of New York, the National Association of Securities Dealers (now the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA)), the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, (SEC) and a number of state securities regulators, relating to intentionally misleading research motivated by a desire to win investment banking business with the companies covered.

In June 2004, the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) imposed a penalty of a censure and $140,000 fine for incorrectly using customers’ margined securities as collateral for cash management loans.

Morgan Stanley settled a sex discrimination suit brought by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for $54 million on July 12, 2004. In 2007, the firm agreed to pay $46 million to settle a class action lawsuit brought by eight female brokers.

In July 2004, the firm paid NASD a $2.2 million fine for more than 1,800 late disclosures of reportable information about its brokers.

In September 2004, the firm paid a $19 million fine imposed by NYSE for failure to deliver prospectuses to customers in registered offerings, inaccurate reporting of certain program trading information, short sale violations, failures to fingerprint new employees and failure to timely file exchange forms.

In December 2004, the firm paid a $100,000 to NASD and paid $211,510 in restitution to customers for failure to make proper disclosures to municipal bond investors. In the course of NASD’s investigation, Morgan Stanley’ failure make a timely response to requests for information resulted in censure and an additional $25,000 fine.

The New York Stock Exchange imposed a $19 million fine on January 12, 2005 for alleged regulatory and supervisory lapses. At the time, it was the largest fine ever imposed by the New York Stock Exchange.

On May 16, 2005, a Florida jury found that Morgan Stanley failed to give adequate information to Ronald Perelman about Sunbeam thereby defrauding him and causing damages to him of $604 million. In addition, punitive damages were added for total damages of $1.450 billion. This verdict was directed by the judge as a sanction against Morgan Stanley after the firm’s attorneys infuriated the court by failing and refusing to produce documents, and falsely telling the court that certain documents did not exist.[citation needed] The ruling was overturned on March 21, 2007 and Morgan Stanley was no longer required to pay the $1.57 billion verdict.

Morgan Stanley settled a class action lawsuit on March 2, 2006. It had been filed in California by both current and former Morgan Stanley employees for unfair labor practices instituted to those in the financial advisor training program. Employees of the program had claimed the firm expected trainees to clock overtime hours without additional pay and handle various administrative expenses as a result of their expected duties. A $42.5 million settlement was reached and Morgan Stanley admitted no fault.

In May the firm agreed to pay a $15 million fine. The Securities and Exchange Commission accused the firm of deleting emails and failing to cooperate with SEC investigators.

On September 25, 2009, Citigroup Inc. filed a federal lawsuit against Morgan Stanley, claiming its rival failed to pay $245 million due under a credit default swap agreement. The breach-of-contract lawsuit was filed in Manhattan federal court and seeks unspecified damages.

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) announced a $12.5 million settlement with Morgan Stanley on September 27, 2007. This resolved charges that the firm’s former affiliate, Morgan Stanley DW, Inc. (MSDW), failed on numerous occasions to provide emails to claimants in arbitration proceedings as well as to regulators. The company had claimed that the destruction of the firm’s email servers in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on New York’s World Trade Center resulted in the loss of all email before that date. In fact, the firm had millions of earlier emails that had been retrieved from backup copies stored in another location that was not destroyed in the attacks. Customers who had lost their arbitration cases against Morgan Stanley DW Inc. because of their inability to obtain these emails to demonstrate Morgan Stanley’s misconduct received a token amount of money as a result of the settlement.

In July 2007, Morgan Stanley agreed to pay $4.4 million to settle a class-action lawsuit. The firm was accused of incorrectly charging clients for storage of precious metals.

In August 2007, Morgan Stanley was fined $1.5 million and paid $4.6 million in restitution to customers related to excessive mark-ups in 2,800 transactions. An employee was charged $40,000 and suspended for 15 days.

Under a settlement with New York Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo, the firm agreed to repurchase approximately $4.5 billion worth of auction rate securities. The firm was accused of misrepresenting auction rate securities in their sales and marketing.

In March 2009, FINRA announced Morgan Stanley was to pay more than $7 million for misconduct in the handling the accounts of 90 Rochester, NY-area retirees.

In May 2009, a trader at the firm was suspended by the FSA for a series of unauthorized commodities trades entered after becoming intoxicated during a three and half hour lunch. A week later another trader at the firm was banned for deliberately disadvantaging clients by ‘pre-hedging’ trades without their consent.

The Financial Services Authority fined the firm £1.4m for failing to use controls properly relating to the actions of a rogue trader on one of its trading desks. Morgan Stanley admitted on June 18, 2008 this resulted in a $120m loss for the firm.

Morgan Stanley managing director Du Jun was convicted of insider trading after a criminal trial in Hong Kong. Mr. Du was accused of buying 26.7 million shares of Citic Resource Holdings while in possession of confidential information about the company. He gained this information as part of a Morgan Stanley team working with the company on a bond issuance and the purchase of an oil field in Kazakhstan. Morgan Stanley’s compliance department was criticized for failing to detect Mr. Du’s illegal trades.

In April, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission announced the firm agreed to pay $14 million related to an attempt to hide prohibited trading activity in oil futures.

A Morgan Stanley trader was barred from the brokerage industry and fined for entering fake trades to fool firm risk management systems causing millions in losses.

The Department of Justice sought a $4.8 million fine from Morgan Stanley for its part in an electricity price-fixing scandal. Con Edison estimated that the crime cost New York state consumers about $300 million. Morgan Stanley earned revenues of $21.6 million from the fraud.

On April 3, the Federal Reserve announced Consent Order against the firm “a pattern of misconduct and negligence in residential mortgage loan servicing and foreclosure processing.” The consent order requires the firm to review foreclosure proceedings conducted by the firm. The firm will also be responsible for monetary sanctions.

Garth R. Peterson, one of Morgan Stanley’s highest-ranking real estate executives in China pleaded guilty on April 25 to violating U.S. federal anticorruption laws. He was charged with secretly acquiring millions of dollars’ worth of property investments for himself and a Chinese government official. The official steered business to Morgan Stanley.

Morgan Stanley was fined $55,000 by Nasdaq OMX for three separate violations of exchange rules. A Morgan Stanley client algorithm started buying and selling enormous volumes by mistake. Furthermore, after the exchange detected the error, they were unable to contact the employee responsible.[73] Morgan Stanley settled a claim from FINRA and paid restitution together totaling almost $2.4 million. Morgan Stanley was accused of improperly supervising and training financial advisors in the use of non-traditional ETF products. This resulted in inappropriate recommendations to several of its retail brokerage customers.

Morgan Stanley is facing lawsuits and government investigation surrounding the Facebook IPO. It is claimed that Morgan Stanley downgraded their earnings forecasts for the company while conducting the IPO roadshow. Allegedly, they passed this information to only a handful of institutional investors. “The allegations, if true, are a matter of regulatory concern” to FINRA and SEC according to FINRA Chairman Richard Ketchum.

Morgan Stanley agreed to pay a $5 million fine to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and an additional $1.75 million to CME and the Chicago Board of Trade. Morgan Stanley employees improperly executed fictitious sales in Eurodollar and Treasury Note futures contracts.

On August 7, 2012, it was announced that Morgan Stanley would have to pay $4.8 million in fines in order to settle a price fixing scandal, which has been estimated to have cost New Yorkers $300 million to date. Morgan Stanley has currently made no admission of any wrongdoing; however, the Justice department commented that they hoped this would “send a message to the banking industry”.

In September 2014, Morgan Stanley agreed to pay $95 million to resolve a lawsuit pursued by the Public Employees’ Retirement System of Mississippi (MissPERS) and the West Virginia Investment Management Board. Morgan Stanley was accused of misleading investors in mortgage-backed securities.

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Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., Inc.,
Acquired by AllianceBernstein L.P. in 2015.  Research Division is an investment research firms specializing in sell side and buy side research services of economies, stock, bond, and currency markets. The research services include fundamental research, quantitative research, economic research and currency forecasting. It offers research services on complex wealth-management issues for individuals involving taxation, single-stock concentration, intergenerational wealth transfer and charitable giving. Other research focuses on complex asset-allocation problems, including liability-driven investment management and liquidity management. The firm caters to individual and institutional investors.

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Goldman Sachs
The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. is an American multinational investment banking firm that engages in global investment banking, investment management, securities and other financial services primarily with institutional clients.
Products: Asset management,commercial banking,commodities, investment banking, investment management, mutual funds,prime brokerage

Goldman Sachs was hit hard by the 2008 economic crisis,[3] because of its involvement in subprime mortgages, and was subsequently rescued as part of a massive U.S. government bailout.

Former Goldman executives who moved on to government positions include, but are not limited to, Robert Rubin and Henry Paulson who served as U.S. Secretaries of the Treasury under former Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, respectively; Mario Draghi, President of the European Central Bank, and Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of Canada from 2008–13 and Governor of the Bank of England since July 2013.

ISSUES:
Too many to list.  Click here for entire list.

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UBS
The company provides wealth management, asset management, and investment banking services for private, corporate, and institutional clients worldwide, and is generally considered to be a bulge bracket bank.
Products: Investment Banking, Investment Management, Wealth Management, Private Banking, Corporate Banking, Private Equity, Finance and Insurance, Consumer Banking, Mortgages, Credit Cards

UBS is considered the world’s largest manager of private wealth assets, with over CHF2.2 trillion in invested assets, and remains a leading provider of retail banking and commercial banking services in Switzerland. In 2014, UBS’ assets under management (AuM) amounted to US$1,966.9 billion, representing a 15.4% increase in AuM compared to the equivalent data of 2013.

In comparison to other European banks, UBS suffered among the largest losses during the subprime mortgage crisis, and the bank was required to raise large amounts of outside capital. In 2007, the bank received a US$9.7 billion capital injection from the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (currently GIC Private Limited effective from July 2013), which remains one of the bank’s largest shareholders.

ISSUES:
Too many to list.  Click here for entire list.

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