Prime Capital Services (PCS) and Gilman Ciocia
Zamansky & Associates LLC has launched an investigation into the sales practices of Prime Capital Services (PCS), a brokerage firm and subsidiary of Gilman Ciocia, an income tax preparation business. We are investigating how PCS and Gilman Ciocia sold variable annuities and whether the firms improperly targeted elderly investors.
The SEC censured Gilman Ciocia and PCS for misrepresenting the variable annuities it sold to senior citizens in the South Florida region. The SEC found that PCS and Gilman Ciocia held free-lunch seminars where elderly customers were aggressively sold investment products that were entirely unsuitable.
We are hearing from the firm’s elderly customers that PCS misrepresented the characteristics of the variable annuities they were sold. Investors claim they were promised they would receive the return of their principal and a guaranteed fixed rate of interest after a given amount of time regardless of how the stock market performed, however, PCS failed to disclose that these guaranteed returns would be paid only if they elected to annuitize their investments.
The SEC has already ordered PCS and Gilman Ciocia to return over $150,000 in elicit gains and pay a fine of $450,000.
If you are a victim of the alleged fraud orchestrated by Gilman Ciocia and/or its Prime Capital Services (PCS) subsidiary, contact Zamansky & Associates LLC here. Consultations are completely confidential and free of charge.
More Lawsuits To Follow?
CNBC : by on April 19, 2010
Lawyers Warn of a Clients Exodus from Goldman Sachs
London Evening Standard : by on April 19, 2010
Goldman CDO Case Could Be Tip of Iceberg
Reuters : by on April 19, 2010
Bank of America’s Brian Moynihan Pulls A “Mark McGwire”
by on January 19, 2010
As I was watching yesterday’s hearings convened by President Obama’s Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission I couldn’t help recall how former baseball slugger and admitted steroid user Mark McGwire sidestepped a question at a Congressional hearing about whether he ever used performance enhancing drugs.
“I’m not here to discuss the past,” he replied, a response quite likely coached by his attorneys to ensure he didn’t say anything legally culpable.
Similarly, Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan gave a deft legal response when testifying before the Financial Crisis Committee.
“It has been clear how poor business judgments we have made have affected Main Street,” he said.
Though the significance of Moynihan’s comment was lost on the media, he, too, was making certain he avoided saying anything that could legally come back to haunt him. There is an aptly named legal doctrine called the “business judgment rule” which states, among other things, that a court will not review the business decisions of directors who performed their duties (1) in good faith; (2) with the care that an ordinarily prudent person in a like position would exercise under similar circumstances; and (3) in a manner the directors reasonably believe to be in the best interests of the corporation.
Moynihan, a lawyer by training, plays possum with a skill that would do famed heavyweight boxer Muhammad Ali proud.
Phil Angelide’s Sorry Beginning
by on January 19, 2010
As I noted in my post earlier this week, I don’t detect enough taxpayer outrage to ensure that Phil Angelide’s Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (FCIC) will lead to any meaningful discoveries or reform and thus, my worst fears appear to be well on their way to being realized. The first two days of hearings were merely political grandstanding and didn’t uncover one iota of new information. It was already well known that Goldman Sachs peddled mortgage-backed securities to its clients and then bet against them. Furthermore, the mea culpas of Messrs. Blankfein, Mack, Moynihan and Dimon didn’t strike me as all that sincere.
Similarly, the decision to probe the actions of regulators back to the Clinton administration is a colossal waste of time and taxpayer resources. Regulation of Wall Street has been virtually non-existent for the past decade; the little wrongdoing that regulators have uncovered has been addressed with fines so paltry that they barely put a dent in the profits earned from such deeds. Indeed, Wall Street has long regarded regulators as mere gnats who are using “public service” to further their careers and then land high paying jobs with the companies they are supposedly “regulating.”
If Angelides really wants to elicit some new perspectives and insights, he might consider calling the folks who had the prescience to predict and profit from the collapse of the subprime market. It would be interesting to know more about these people and why they were so much smarter than the vast majority of people working on Wall Street.
It would also be interesting to find out if the folks who bought Goldman’s mortgage-backed securities really were advised by Goldman that they were shorting the securities….as the company has claimed. I wonder if these clients continue doing business with the firm?