MIAMI, FL \u2013 December 6, 2016 – (GLOBE NEWSWIRE-HISPANICIZE WIRE) – UBS Financial Services Inc. and UBS Financial Services Inc. of Puerto Rico (collectively \u201cUBS\u201d) were slammed with an $18 million FINRA arbitration verdict (Case No. 14-02464) released today, says Sonn and Erez PLC. The award included approximately $12.7 million in compensatory damages, $2.5 million in interest, $3.18 million in attorney\u2019s fees, and $163,000 in expert costs. The arbitration, like over 1,000 other arbitrations, centered on the sale of Puerto Rico Municipal Bonds and Puerto Rico closed end funds that owned Puerto Rico muni bonds on margin.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis verdict supports our theory that UBS oversold Puerto Rico bonds and closed end funds to their customers, in concentrated amounts, like many other brokerage firms in Puerto Rico,\u201d said Jeffrey Sonn of Sonn & Erez, PLC, whose law firm was not involved in the verdict, but who represent over 200 Puerto Rico investors with similar claims. \u201cOur firm has already won two large Puerto Rico arbitration awards against UBS, and resolved many, many other claims similar to today\u2019s verdict,\u201d added Sonn. <\/p>\n
\u201cBrokerage firms in Puerto Rico, like UBS, in our opinion, placed too much emphasis on the triple tax free benefits of the Puerto Rico muni bonds and closed end funds, and failed to properly supervise the concentration in customer accounts, which left many customers with a majority, and in some cases, all of their money invested in just Puerto Rico muni bonds and proprietary closed end bond funds,\u201d added Jeff Erez, Esq. of Sonn and Erez. <\/p>\n
In 2015, FINRA fined UBS $18.5 million finding that \u201cUBS PR failed to monitor the combination of leverage and concentration levels in customer accounts to ensure that the transactions were suitable given the customers’ risk objectives and profiles,\u201d according to FINRA.<\/p>\n
Sonn and Erez, along with the Puerto Rico-based law firm of Aldarondo & Lopez Bras, represent over 200 customers that have significant losses in Puerto Rico muni bonds and proprietary closed end bond funds.<\/p>\n
UBS Puerto Rico bond funds include:<\/p>\n
Tax-Free Puerto Rico Fund I-II,
\nTax-Free Puerto Rico Target Maturity Fund,
\nPuerto Rico AAA Portfolio Target Maturity Fund,
\nPuerto Rico AAA Portfolio Bond Fund I-II,
\nPuerto Rico GNMA & U.S. Government Target Maturity Fund,
\nPuerto Rico Mortgage-Backed & U.S. Government Securities Fund,
\nPuerto Rico Fixed Income Fund I-VI,
\nPuerto Rico Investors Tax-Free Fund I-VI,
\nPuerto Rico Tax-Free Target Maturity Fund I-II,
\nPuerto Rico Investors Bond Fund.<\/p>\n
Sonn & Erez PLC is a nationally leading law firm that represents individual and institutional investors in a wide variety of investment and securities cases. Our co-counsel, Aldarondo & Lopez-Bras is a leading law firm in Guaynabo, Puerto Rico, also representing investors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MIAMI, FL \u2013 December 6, 2016 – (GLOBE NEWSWIRE-HISPANICIZE WIRE) – UBS Financial Services Inc. and UBS Financial Services Inc. of Puerto Rico (collectively \u201cUBS\u201d) were slammed with an $18 million FINRA arbitration verdict (Case No. 14-02464) released today, says Sonn and Erez PLC. The award included approximately $12.7 million in compensatory damages, $2.5 million… Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17941,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2348,4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-18916","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-negocios-finanzas","8":"category-business-finance","9":"entry"},"acf":[],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/www.noticiasnewswire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/featured8.jpg","featured_image_src_square":"https:\/\/www.noticiasnewswire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/featured8.jpg","author_info":{"display_name":"mruiz","author_link":"https:\/\/www.noticiasnewswire.com\/es\/author\/mruiz\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.noticiasnewswire.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.noticiasnewswire.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.noticiasnewswire.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.noticiasnewswire.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.noticiasnewswire.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18916"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.noticiasnewswire.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18916\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.noticiasnewswire.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.noticiasnewswire.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.noticiasnewswire.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.noticiasnewswire.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}