“Fiduciary fraud is defined as a legal term that applies in a situation where there is a breach of the trust reposed in a fiduciary who occupies such a position of trust in respect to the management of the finances of the client (Ejim 2014).” Fiduciaries are legally and ethically obliged to act in a way that benefits their clients. When fiduciaries start acting in a way that puts there own interest ahead of their clients then that’s when fraud has been committed. They’re plenty of cases of fiduciary fraud, such as, Ponzi schemes, churning, and embezzlement.
Mattew Hutcheson was indicted by a federal grand jury for Embezzlement on April 11th 2014. “The indictment alleges that Hutcheson was a trustee and fiduciary for the G Fiduciary Retirement Income Security Plan, National Retirement Security Plan 401(k) and the Retirement Security Plan and Trust“ (Sullivan 2014). Hutcheson misappropriated assets of G Fiduciary Retirement by using wire transfers by putting 401K plan assets into bank accounts controlled only by Hutcheson. Hutcheson defrauded more then $5 million dollars of assets.
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Churning violates securities rules set in place by the SEC and can result into fines, incarceration, probation, and restitution. There are a many ways to figure out if churning has been committed such as, brokers frequently buy and sell securities, which have little effect in meeting the client’s financial goals. Churning can result in substantial losses on client’s accounts, as well as implement then into tax
A previous leader of The Sommet Group, Brian Whitfield, was accused and found guilty after a plea of not guilty to stealing money from clients and the government in the amount of $20 million. The IRS believed the estimated money stolen was upwards of $22 million. The federal prosecutor claimed and proved Whitfield had stolen and then used money for his own personal expenses. Although, the case originally indicted Whitfield’s
Mr. Pharaon a Saudi businessman was indicted on 1991 as well as Mr. Milken on 1989 was indicted of racketeering and securities violations. Drexel Burnham Lambert has settled criminal and civil securities charges.
Ethical Behaviour includes obeying the law and specific regulatory rules (CII, 2013), it is necessary that Paraplanners are aware of relevant laws and regulations including: the Financial Conduct Authority’s Principles for Business and Statements of Principle for Approved Persons (CII, 2013) and the Chartered Insurance Institute Code (CII’s code) (CII, 2014) as well as the Data Protection Act 1998 (Data Protection GOV.UK, 2013), Money Laundering Regulations (Office of Fair Trading, 2009) and the Financial Conduct Authority’s six Treating Customers Fairly Outcomes (FCA, 2013). Paraplanners must act with the highest ethical standards and integrity as well as acting in the best interests of each clients (CII, 2014). It is important that paraplanners are aware of the data protection act as clients have a right to expect complete confidentiality about their personal lives such as income and identity (CII, 2013). If paraplanner has a role to play in adviser charging, then paraplanner need to be aware of the anti-money laundering rules, a paraplanner is most likely to be in charge of implementing these rules (CII, 2013). Paraplanners are very much involved in the identification procedures for client, by making sure there are copies of “acceptable” identity kept on file, therefore the paraplanner needs to have received the appropriate training on verification and identification of clients (CII, 2013)
Former treasure Ben Gilsan was charged with money laundering, fraud and conspiracy. He pleaded guilty in 2003 to one count of conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud. He served a five-year sentence at a federal penitentiary in Beaumont, Tex and financial penalties of more then 1 million dollars. Gilsan famously described Enron as a “House of Cards”. Andrew Fastow pled guilty to one charge of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and one charge to of conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud. He agreed to 10 years imprisonment and the forfeiture of 29.8
As what it came to be as one of the notorious case of fraud in the mid-1980s; the electronic store well known as (Crazy Eddie), its owner Eddie Antar and CFO Sam Antar committed every possible act fraud there is. Just to mention two of which they perpetrated; tax evasion and securities fraud. Basically, the tax evasion was committed for many years, it was not until the company became public in 1984 that their wrong doing near its end. Once Crazy Eddie went public, a new set of rules took place, such as compliance with the Securities Exchange Commission and the scrutiny of its investors. Soon, they both realized that their long committed fraud was nearing its end, when an external audit found the real numbers on the company’s inventory, revenues,
Rothstein) were indicted for conspiracy to defraud the public. All were acquitted for want of
After investigators looked into the case, they found that Gliniewicz pocketed tens of thousands of dollars from
Worker's Compensation is a service that provides reimbursement for lost wages to employees who have sustained injuries from work or work-related tasks. It is also one of the services that is most often the victim of fraud. Each of the three types of fraud, claimant, employer, and provider, is defined by the same characteristics, outlined by the Ohio Board of Workers Compensation:
A conflict of interest may be described also as a conflict of duties or a conflict between interests or as a conflict between interest and duty. To act when they have a conflict of interest involves breaching their fiduciary duty to their client or former client. This is the basis of the conflict of interest problem and is stressed in many of the cases dealing with conflict of interest. There are four element of the fiduciary duty, duty of confidentiality, duty not to put their own or other people’s interests before their own client, duty not to misuse client’s money, and competent standard of
Although many of her actions were parallel with fellow manager in General Accounting Troy Nordmand’s, he did not receive a prison sentence due to the fact that he attempted to leave the company (although Vinson did initially plan to resign). Conversely, Vinson was sentenced to five months in prison and five months of home detention. One particularly interesting aspect of Betty Vinson’s case is the inclusion of her concerns over taking home pay and having health insurance, in addition to the fact that she had a positive reputation and was known for doing “anything you told her”. While it is normal to have concerns over job security, the emotional appeals in her situation add a different side to the story. One could argue that she is a victim -- she could have been targeted due to her reputation, or that fear drove her to do things she otherwise would not have considered. The issue here, however, is that she facilitated the fulfillment of Sullivan’s requests and pleaded guilty to one count of securities fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud. As far as the case specifies, despite any superior’s knowledge of Vinson’s tendencies, she was not absolutely forced to do or not do anything. Because she committed the crime and pleaded accordingly, the criminal charges and consequent sentencing was both expected and
Stewart was convicted of conspiracy, perjury and obstruction of justice in 2001, and for using insider information to sell shares of the company ImClone Systems. This type of fraud damages the confidence of investors, it makes them perceive the lack of equality.
In December 1973, Robert Steinberg (plaintiff) applied as a first year student at Chicago Medical School (defendant). He paid a $15 application fee and got rejected from the school. He filed against Chicago Medical school declaring that the school did not fully examine his application, in relation to the criteria posted on the school’s bulletin board. Steinberg claimed that the school made their decision of rejecting him on the basis of personal relationships one had with the school’s professors and vows made by the parents of the applicants to give huge amounts of cash to the school. Furthermore, Steinberg argued that there was a breach in the contract when the school took his application fee.
Weld, L. G., Bergevin, P. M., & Magrath, L. (2004). Anatomy of a financial fraud. The CPA
In 1995 The Bayou Hedge Fund Group, referred to as the fund, was founded by Samuel Israel III in Stamford, Connecticut with the intention to produce high returns for investors. Good intentions were not enough when the fund began to experience losses almost immediately and Mr. Israel resorted to fraudulent activities to keep the appearance of success alive. The resulting life of the fund was filled will illegal, fraudulent, and unethical activities that finally brought the fund to bankruptcy and landed Mr. Israel and some of his key associates in prison. The objective of this paper is to overview the history of the case and to highlight some of the major issues that should have alerted investors and other outside parties to the wrongdoings being perpetrated.
This includes but is not limited to; check forgery, inventory theft, cash or check theft, payroll fraud or service theft. Another example of misappropriation of assets is when a company pays for goods or services that were not received or used. Embezzlement is a very common form of misappropriation where companies manipulate their accounts or create false invoices. An example of misappropriation of assets was discovered in 2008 and the victim organization was Fry’s Electronics. The Vice President of Merchandising and Operations, Ausaf Umar Siddiqui had set up a fake company that received illegal kickbacks. Siddiqui embezzled $65.6 million to pay off his gambling debts. Embezzlement of money from a company can understate cash and show a false picture to the creditors and investors. This can lead them to make decisions on misrepresented information. Another example of misappropriation of assets was of a hedge-fund manager, Philip A. Falcone who borrowed $113.2 million from investors from a hedge fund company (Harbinger Capital) and he used that money fraudulently to pay off his personal taxes. Instead of using the investor’s money for the intended purpose, which was to build a wireless phone network, he deceived them by using the money without their knowledge to pay off his taxes. The company had to file for bankruptcy as it had $23 billion in losses and withdrawals and it could not pay back