New York AG Sues Schwab over ARS

Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo today filed a lawsuit against Charles Schwab & Co. (“Schwab”) charging the discount brokerage firm for falsely representing auction rate securities as liquid, short-term investments without discussing the risks. According to the Attorney General, Schwab brokers repeatedly and persistently misrepresented the liquidity risks in auction rate securities, comparing them to money market funds or certificates of deposit, selling auction rates as suitable for cash management purposes, or otherwise telling customers they would always be able to retrieve their cash.

The Attorney General referred to audio recordings obtained during the investigation that allegedly confirm that Schwab brokers repeatedly misled investors about the risks of investing in auction rate securities. One Schwab broker “guaranteed” that his customer would be able to “get out of [his auction rate security] on the auction date.” Another assured a customer that she just needed to “call me … and then the next month I’ll stop the auction and all the cash [invested in auction rate securities] will come back to your account.” Another Schwab broker described preferred auction rate securities as a “short-term institutional holding instrument” that was particularly suitable for managing the customer’s cash balances:

If you need to have that access to them at any time, that’s a good place for those to be. You know if you think you might need to get into that money, that’s probably as good a place if not better than anywhere to leave them.

Another broker represented that the hardest part of investing in an auction rate security “is getting into it. That would be the tough part. I mean, getting out is something as easy as just selling it.”

According to the Attorney General, while Schwab publicly touted its “extensive fixed-income research,” “expertise” and “seasoned bond traders, who have an average of 15 years of industry experience,” Schwab’s persistent fraud was possible because Schwab failed to train or otherwise ensure that its brokers had even a basic understanding of auction rate securities. Brokers interviewed during the investigation all confirmed that they received no formal training from Schwab relating to auction rate securities. As a result, many Schwab brokers misunderstood or knew little about the auction rate securities they were selling to Schwab’s customers. While Schwab sold customers on its fixed income “expertise,” one broker stated: “I don’t know what measuring scale you would want to use to assess my knowledge about auction rate securities … but on whatever measuring scale my knowledge was pretty low.” The lack of training and understanding at Schwab proved devastating to Schwab’s customers. When one broker was asked if his customers adequately understood the risks of auction rate securities, the broker replied: “No. . . . They probably didn’t know that here is a product you might not be able to sell. It wasn’t conveyed by myself or the financial consultant because we didn’t know either.” Just one week before the auction rate securities market collapsed, during a call with another broker-dealer, one Schwab broker still did not understand the risks that were about to haunt Schwab’s customers, asking “how could an auction fail?”

Today’s action seeks, among other things, to compel Schwab to buy-back auction rate securities from the Schwab investors still holding illiquid securities, penalties, costs, disgorgement, restitution, and other equitable relief.

Here is the complaint.