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Life Health > Annuities > Variable Annuities

NASD Charges Brokers Over VA Market Timing Allegations

By Staff Writer

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The National Association of Securities Dealers has gone after 3 individuals in connection with concerns about a hedge fund manager’s efforts to get around variable annuities’ restrictions on market timing.

The NASD, Washington, says it has filed charges against Jeffrey Doerr and David Corn, 2 Utah brokers who once were affiliated with a securities operation that Prudential Financial Inc., Newark, N.J., sold to Wachovia Corp., Charlotte, N.C.

The NASD also has charged the brokers’ branch manager, Darrel Trost, in connection with allegations that Trost failed to provide adequate supervision for Doerr and Corn.

Doerr, Corn and Trost could not immediately be reached for comment.

Market timing is the practice of making rapid trades to benefit from inefficiencies in the flow of financial information.

Market timing is not illegal, but excessive marketing timing can hurt other investors by increasing a mutual fund or variable annuities’ costs, NASD officials say.

NASD officials say the brokers it has charged helped a hedge fund manager get around variable annuity issuers restrictions on market timing from 2000 to 2003 by taking steps such as opening 20 brokerage accounts in the names of many different limited partnerships and ignoring notices from insurance companies that tried to block the hedge fund manager’s many transactions.

The brokers also were slow to update disciplinary record forms to show that they were the subjects of investigations, NASD officials allege.

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