Fiduciary duty is determined by facts and circumstances and it is not uncommon for fiduciaries to be unaware of their status. One of the first issues that will arise in breach of fiduciary duty litigation is determination of whether the defendent, in fact, owed a fiduciary duty.

The issuance of Bearer Bonds has been discouraged for almost 3 decades with the passage of the TEFRA in 1982.
“The interest on any such bonds issued after 1982 would be taxable to the issuer in the case of corporate bonds, and taxable to the holder in the case of municipal bonds.”
I guess that did not [...]

Madoff turned the table on the client: he had it set up so that he basically interviewed them for admittance. That made the potential client want it more. I can’t imagine how those people feel right now.
When your money manager is the:
broker/dealer
custodian
investment advisor
you have to have a lot of trust for that person or entity. [...]

By JANE J. KIM and AARON LUCCHETTI
Buried in President Obama’s proposed regulatory overhaul is a change that could upend Wall Street: Brokers would be held to a higher “fiduciary” standard that would compel them to place their client’s interests ahead of their own.
Currently, brokers are only required to offer investments that are “suitable,” which means [...]

Allen Stanford was arrested shortly after being indicted.
Had anyone done a full-on fiduciary review, they could have gone a long way to side-stepping the Madoff and Stanford crimes. In Madoff’s case, there was no transparency: Madoff was the Investment Advisor, the Broker/Dealer, and the custodian of the client funds.
You couldn’t have stopped the crime [...]

Five things to include in your portfolio review.

Are financial advisers legally required to put your interests ahead of their own?
It depends on whether they are brokers or registered investment advisers. Different sets of laws apply to these two types of professionals, even though brokers and advisers sometimes do the same thing. Unfortunately, it’s not always clear which one you’re dealing with.
The duty [...]

Bernard Madoff’s $65 billion investment scheme has made the term “Ponzi scheme” the water cooler topic of 2009.