{"id":89256,"date":"2024-09-05T00:09:07","date_gmt":"2024-09-05T04:09:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hedgeco.net\/news\/?p=89256"},"modified":"2024-09-04T23:56:37","modified_gmt":"2024-09-05T03:56:37","slug":"broker-dealer-nationwide-and-two-investment-advisers-charged-with-violating-whistleblower-protection-rule","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/09\/2024\/broker-dealer-nationwide-and-two-investment-advisers-charged-with-violating-whistleblower-protection-rule.html","title":{"rendered":"Broker-Dealer Nationwide and Two Investment Advisers Charged with Violating Whistleblower Protection Rule"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>(HedgeCo.Net) The Securities and Exchange Commission has settled charges against three affiliated registrants, Commission-registered broker-dealer <strong>Nationwide Planning Associates, <\/strong>Inc. and investment adviser <strong>NPA Asset Management, LLC,<\/strong> and state-registered investment adviser <strong>Blue Point <\/strong>Strategic Wealth Management, LLC, for impeding brokerage customers and advisory clients from reporting securities law violations to the SEC. The firms agreed to pay combined civil penalties of <strong>$240,000<\/strong> to settle the SEC\u2019s charges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According to the SEC\u2019s order, from May 2021 through February 2024, Nationwide, NPA, and Blue Point collectively asked 11 retail clients to sign confidentiality agreements in connection with payments made by the entities to the clients\u2019 investment accounts. The payments were intended to compensate the clients for losses caused by the firms\u2019 alleged breaches of federal or state securities laws. The order finds that the agreements contained provisions that impeded clients from reporting potential securities law violations to the SEC by permitting communications only where the SEC first initiated an inquiry. As described in the order, some of the agreements further required the clients to represent that they had not reported the underlying dispute to the SEC or to another securities regulator and would forever refrain from such reporting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cPure and simple, investors need to be able to report complaints or evidence of wrongdoing to the SEC without impediment,\u201d said Corey Schuster, Co-Chief of the Enforcement Division\u2019s Asset Management Unit.&nbsp; \u201cWe will continue to hold firms accountable for putting roadblocks between us and their investors.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The SEC\u2019s order finds that Nationwide, NPA, and Blue Point each violated Rule 21F-17(a) under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, a whistleblower protection rule that prohibits taking any action to impede an individual from communicating directly with SEC staff about possible securities law violations. Without admitting or denying the SEC\u2019s findings, Nationwide, NPA, and Blue Point each agreed to be censured and to cease and desist from violating the whistleblower protection rule. They further agreed to a combined penalty, which was apportioned according to their relative size and financial condition, with NPA agreeing to pay $160,000, Nationwide $70,000, and Blue Point $10,000.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(HedgeCo.Net) The Securities and Exchange Commission has settled charges against three affiliated registrants, Commission-registered broker-dealer Nationwide Planning Associates, Inc. and investment adviser NPA Asset Management, LLC, and state-registered investment adviser Blue Point Strategic Wealth Management, LLC, for impeding brokerage customers [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,3,16048],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-89256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hedgeco-networks-press-releases","category-hedgeco-news","category-hedgecovest-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89256"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89256\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":89257,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89256\/revisions\/89257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}