Smiley Bishop & Porter has been engaged to represent former clients of Blake Richards, a Buford, Georgia broker who has been barred from the securities industry for fraud and misappropriation. Richards was employed by several firms including H&R Block Financial Advisors, Ameriprise Advisor Services, Inc. and LPL Financial, Inc. Richards defrauded his clients, who included […]
Mike Bishop elected president of North Fulton Bar Association
Smiley Bishop & Porter partner J. Michael Bishop has been elected president of the North Fulton Bar Association for 2012-2013. The NFBA consists of approximately 130 members who are primarily lawyers practicing or living north of the Chattahoochee River in the Atlanta, Georgia metropolitan area. Its membership also includes judges whose jurisdictions include North Fulton County. […]
FINRA Head Explains Perils of Complex Investment Products
Richard G. Ketchum, Chairman and CEO of FINRA, appeared before the securities industry trade group SIFMA at its Complex Products Forum on September 27, 2012 in New York to admonish brokerage firms about the perils and obligations involved in marketing complex investment products to investors. According to Ketchum, while there is no legal definition of […]
Houston & Lett v. Wells Fargo Advisors
(FINRA, 2011) Elderly Investor Recovers Losses Tied to UIT After a four day hearing, a panel of FINRA arbitrators awarded $130,000.00 in compensatory damages to our clients. The damages were for losses incurred by an elderly woman with Alzheimer’s disease whose funds were invested primarily in high-risk securities, including a Claymore Unit Investment Trust (“UIT”).
What’s a UIT?
With apologies to “My Cousin Vinnie,” a UIT is a Unit Investment Trust. UITs are investment products that brokers love to sell and investors should avoid. UITs are portfolios of stocks, bonds, or mutual funds which are assembled by trustees and then sold in units consisting of a portion of all of the assets in […]
