Complaints to regulatory agencies haven't stopped the practice of undeclared short selling.
At long last we may have a recent* example of what I was looking for in the post I'm responding to (or at any rate something very close to what I was looking for). This assumes I haven't misinterpreted the following allegations found among the latest monthly summary of NASD Regulation enforcement actions:
"Fiero Brothers, Inc. (New York, New York), Falcon Trading Group, Inc. (Boca
Raton, Florida), Sovereign Equity Management Corp. (Boca Raton, Florida), John
Fiero (Registered Principal, Jersey City, New Jersey), Steven Carlson (Registered
Principal, Denver, Colorado), and Glen Vittor (Registered Principal, Boca Raton,
Florida) have been charged with manipulation, violation of rules relating to short
sales, and violating standards of commercial honor and just and equitable
principles of trade. The complaint alleges that, during January and February 1995,
they engaged in a manipulative "bear raid" to drive down the price of 10 Nasdaq
securities. The complaint also alleges that the respondents engaged in short selling in proprietary accounts without making the requisite affirmative determination that the stock could be borrowed."
nasdr.com
According to news accounts, Fiero Bros. was among the short sellers in the recent shopping.com activities. However, per a published report** in the LA Times the NASDR action relates to earlier shorting of stocks sold by the brokerage firm Hanover Sterling & Co. The story of some of the Fiero/Hanover battles was given in a Business Week piece titled "The Mob on Wall Street" (or something like that) which is unfortunately no longer available for free on the Web. If memory serves (and I think it does), Fiero Bros. was not the firm with the alleged mob connections.
* Thanks to Mr. Dendro for locating the case law example he described in an earlier post.
** Unfortunately, I don't have an electronic version and this story, like the BW article, is no longer available for free on the Web. A copy can be purchased at the LA Times Web site: latimes.com |
