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No Quarter Radio’s Sense on Cents with Larry Doyle Welcomes Helen Davis Chaitman, Sunday Evening at 8pm EST

Posted by Larry Doyle on October 31st, 2009 3:49 PM |

UPDATE: This episode of NQR’s Sense on Cents with Larry Doyle has concluded. You can listen to a recording of the episode in its entirety by clicking the play button on the audio player provided below. Once the audio begins, you can advance or rewind to any portion of the episode by clicking at any point along the play bar. We did have some technical difficulties connecting with our guest at around the 12 minute mark of the show. You can listen up to that point, and then advance it to the 24 minute mark when Helen Davis Chaitman joins the program.

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Who truly protects the average American investor? Our financial regulators are licking their wounds and playing catch up from seemingly 20-plus years of being asleep at the wheel. Banks and brokers are fighting tooth and nail against instituting a fiduciary code of conduct. Why do more and more investors not trust Wall Street? Where should one turn to navigate this corner of our economic landscape?

Welcome to No Quarter Radio’s Sense on Cents with Larry Doyle as I welcome Helen Davis Chaitman this Sunday evening at 8pm EST.  Helen Davis Chaitman is a prominent attorney and partner in the New York based law firm Phillips Nizer LLP. Her career spans a vast part of our economic landscape.

Helen Davis Chaitman is a nationally recognized litigator with a diverse trial practice in the areas of lender liability, bankruptcy, bank fraud, RICO, professional malpractice, trusts and estates, and white collar defense.  In 1995, Ms. Chaitman was named one of the nation’s top ten litigators by the National Law Journal for a jury verdict she obtained in an accountants’ malpractice case.  Ms. Chaitman is the author of The Law of Lender Liability (Warren, Gorham & Lamont 1990) which is periodically updated and, since 1987, has authored the monthly newsletter, The Lender Liability Law Report.  In early 2009, Ms. Chaitman spearheaded the firm’s pro bono representation of investors in Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC.  She has been an outspoken advocate for  the victims of Madoff’s Ponzi scheme and for the government failures which caused massive losses to innocent investors. (more…)

A Quick Review of SIPC’s Investments

Posted by Larry Doyle on August 22nd, 2009 1:16 PM |

Given the concerns I have raised about the investment portfolio of FINRA, I wondered if the same problems may reside within the investment portfolio of SIPC (Securities Investor Protection Corporation).

In the process of looking through SIPC’s Annual Reports and Financial statements for the last 4 years (SIPC Annual Reports), I see that SIPC holds approximately $1.7 billion in U.S. government securities. Whatever else one may want to say about SIPC, the fact is its investment portfolio is positioned appropriately given the nature of the organization and its work.

Contrast SIPC’s portfolio with that of FINRA’s which up until this past April held a mix of common equities, fixed income, hedge funds, fund of funds, and private equity. Given the nature of FINRA’s work, why didn’t it strictly hold U.S. government securities as well? What answers lie within that FINRA portfolio?

I will not absolve SIPC completely. In his “Message from the Chairman” in SIPC’s 2007 Annual Report, SIPC Chair Armando J. Bucelo, Jr. made a statement which he would probably like to retract. Bucelo wrote:

The year 2007 saw an event which has never previously occurred in the 37 year history of SIPC. During the year, SIPC was not called upon to initiate a customer protection proceeding for any SIPC member brokerage firm. Indeed, in the four year period from 2004 to 2007, SIPC was called upon to initiate proceedings for a total of only six brokerage firms. This is the lowest number of new proceedings during any four year period in our corporate history. As I have mentioned before in previous Annual Reports, I attribute this extraordinary result to the vigilance of the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, and the state regulators, who assure customers that their assets are properly segregated and that brokerage firms maintain capital adequacy.

I will grant that Mr. Bucelo was clearly currying favor with his regulatory colleagues; however, while these regulators were sleeping, the seeds of destruction on Wall Street were growing strong.

LD






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