In a disturbing story just released by Reuters about bonds fraud, it appears that the Chairman of brokerage firm UBS Financial Services Inc. of Puerto Rico (UBS Puerto Rico) berated UBS brokers for failing to sell UBS’s risky Puerto Rico bond funds and implored them to sell the funds. According to Reuters, in April 2011, two years before the bond funds’ prices tanked, some UBS Puerto Rico brokers were reluctant to sell the funds. The brokers are said to have provided UBS with a list of 22 reasons why they did not want to sell the funds. In a recording of what purports to be a June 2, 2011 meeting among UBS Puerto Rico’s Chairman, Miguel Ferrer, and a group of UBS Puerto Rico brokers, Ferrer can be heard berating the brokers to sell funds to customers or “get a new job!” The Spanish-language recording can be heard here: http://bit.ly/1EJfAWz.
Hundreds of Puerto Rico investors have filed FINRA arbitration claims against UBS Puerto Rico and its U.S. affiliate, UBS Financial Services, Inc., claiming that UBS brokers recommend and sold over-concentrated positions of UBS’s risky, leveraged bond funds. Many of the investors have lost the majority of their life savings because of this bonds fraud. This recording could be powerful evidence in support of those FINRA arbitration claims. UBS has argued that Puerto Rico investors demanded to buy the funds, but the recording makes clear that the funds were sold to customers through UBS’s aggressive sales efforts.
Puerto Rico securities regulators already have fined UBS Puerto Rico millions of dollars relating to the firm’s conduct in selling the funds. We expect FINRA arbitration panels to find UBS’s conduct deplorable, leading to damage awards for Puerto Rico investors who pursue FINRA arbitration claims.
Dimond Kaplan & Rothstein, P.A. has filed dozens of FINRA arbitration claims on behalf of more than one hundred Puerto Rico investors who lost money in UBS Puerto Rico bond funds. If you lost money in UBS Puerto Rico bond funds, contact us for a free case evaluation at 888-578-6255 or info@dkrpa.com.
