Securities & Stock Broker Fraud Blog
Miller Law Group – Miller Stern Lawyers, LLC is currently investigating allegations against John Hoff Russell CRD#: 728702 and Stifel, Nicolaus & Company, Incorporated pertaining to a multitude of allegations including broker fraud, subterfuge negligence and intentional actions in customer accounts without authority, breach of fiduciary duty, and other securities violations. Please call 410 Law Firm for more information.
A FINRA arbitration panel has ordered Stifel, Nicolaus & Co. and one of their financial advisors to pay a client $800,000.oo for her claim of “being hoodwinked about allowing money to be withdrawn from accounts she held with her estranged husband.” The claims involve such complaints as broker fraud and negligence, typical complaints by clients in these matters. John Hoff Russell, the broker with Stifel, was alleged to have worked with the now-deceased husband of the client and “intentionally used subterfuge” to obtain her consent to transfer assets from joint-tenancy accounts, according to a summary of the complaint that was published on March 22.
“[A]s a result of Russell’s actions, alone and in concert with the decedent, and because of Russell’s failure to provide claimant or her attorney-in-fact with material information, Claimant and her children were left substantially disinherited from the majority of the Decedent’s financial assets that had been provided for them under his and Claimant’s estate plans,” the summary of the complaint said.
According to Advisor Hub customer complaints and litigation against brokerages will be heating up with the market turmoil. Most of the industry will likely conclude that coronavirus pandemic fears and oil wars between Russia and Saudi Arabia are the cause of the market drop and are totally out of anyone one person or companies control, however there can be broker misconduct involved in the level of losses because of things such as over-concentration and other individual account irregularities.