Podcast Center
Video Center
Webcasts
Resource Center
Events
By 
September 09, 2020 at 09:23 PM
A former chief compliance officer at America Northcoast Securities, an advisory firm barred by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, has agreed to pay $65,000 as part of a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission for enabling an ex-broker to make risky trades without clients’ consent, according to the regulator.
In an order filed by the SEC Aug. 27, the regulator claimed Christopher R. Barone, 54, of Pepper Pike, Ohio “enabled” ex-ANS broker Dominic A. Tropiano to “solicit and place securities trades in 66 accounts of retail customers that Tropiano had recruited from the broker-dealer where he previously worked.”
Tropiano “engaged in unauthorized and unsuitable trading in the accounts of retail customers” with Barone’s “knowledge and substantial assistance,” the SEC said, adding Barone “willfully aided and abetted and caused” Tropiano and the firm to violate securities rules.
The SEC, on Aug. 27, also filed a complaint against Tropiano in U.S. District Court, Northern District of Ohio, in which it claimed he fraudulently engaged in unsuitable and unauthorized trading in the accounts of retail brokerage customers.
“Tropiano’s fraud involved placing more than 500 trades involving complex securities called leveraged exchange-traded funds [that] were high-risk securities intended to be traded daily by sophisticated investors and not held for periods longer than one day,” the SEC said.
Tropiano’s customers were retail investors, including elderly ones, “who had only moderate risk profiles and long-term investment objectives,” the SEC said.
Although the investments were “unsuitable for his customers, Tropiano recommended and purchased leveraged ETFs for at least 40 retail customer accounts and held the leveraged ETFs in those accounts for weeks and, in some cases, months,” according to the complaint.
