RULING: INVESTMENT EVEN TOO COMPLEX FOR BANK CEO
Arden Dale And Douglas Miller Wall Street Journal
March 30, 2012
A financial industry arbitration panel in San Francisco has ruled that a former top Deutsche Bank executive is entitled to more than $870,000 for losses he sustained from investing in a family of complex collateralized bond obligations.
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority panel ruled Thursday in support of James Zeigon, a former chief executive of Global Institutional Services for Deutsche Bank, who claimed First Republic Securities Co. 'failed to perform an adequate reasonable-basis suitability determination' before it sold him shares in a CBO.
At issue were Mr. Zeigon's investments in the Trainer Wortham First Republic CBO parts III, IV and V, plus the TW Tax Advantaged Fund LP.
Such suitability findings aren't unusual with complex investment products, but Mr. Zeigon's attorney, Cary Lapidus, argued the funds were too complex for even a top bank executive to understand, and thus were unsuitable as investments for anybody.
'It's very rare to have a bank president—with the kind of banks that he was president of—be a plaintiff,' Mr. Lapidus said. 'It's as if [J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive] Jamie Dimon was suing his brokerage and recovered money.'
The Finra panel ruled Mr. Zeigon was entitled to $870,631.50 to cover losses on an investment of $1.25 million that Mr. Lapidus said lost 70% in seven months. While Mr. Zeigon was ordered to surrender his ownership documents for one of the CBOs, Mr. Lapidus said they were 'not worth anything.'
An attorney for First Republic, Sara B. Brody of Sidley Austin LP in San Francisco, didn't return a call for comment. A spokeswoman for Finra said it doesn't comment on panel rulings.
Mr. Lapidus said the ruling demonstrated the panel's reluctance to accept a broker's usage of the 'sophisticated investor' defense when dealing with complicated investment products.
'Arbitrators are beginning to understand that these kind of toxic investments were being sold to sophisticated people, and even they were misled,' he said.
Please contact us for assistance with securities arbitration law, securities litigation, broker misconduct, investment advisor misconduct and investment losses.
 |