AUCTION RATE SECURITIES

MEISSNER LAW FIRM LAUNCHES
AUCTION RATE SECURITIES INVESTIGATION

MARCH 1, 2008

The Law Offices of Stuart D. Meissner LLC has launched an investigation into Auction Rate Securities. Many individuals, non for profits, charities and business who had sought a safe secure short term place to park their ready cash, were instead steered by their financial advisors into these instruments without being informed of the risk and possibility of illiquidity. We are investigating numerous cases involving major wire houses such as brokerages UBS, JPMorgan Chase, Stifel Nicolaus, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and Citigroup regarding the funding of such instruments. Many of the statements made to the investor appear to have been false, misleading statements. 

They were presented to clients as “ultra safe”, short term investment vehicles equivalent to market funds and guaranteed by the gov’t. Prospectuses were not provided to the investor and in many cases the financial advisor had not read the prospectus, let alone warn of the risks of these investments. Clients have been told that the 7 day auctions have failed and that they thus cannot have access to their funds. Billions of dollars of securities have been frozen by major brokerage firms. Demand for auction rate securities has collapsed and rather than support the market, brokerage firms recently began allowing the auctions to fail leaving institutional and individual clients with the losses.  The value of these securities are directly dependent upon a market for them. As there is no market for them currently their value is currently worthless with the exception of the interest they provide.

The Meissner firm has represented numerous individuals, non-for profits and companies seeking reimbursement of their losses and has never lost any in-person arbitration hearing to date.  We pride ourselves on the care and attention we pay to each case as we are not a “Mill” type law firm. We are pursuing these cases involving a variety of brokerage firms from around the country. Having been a prosecutor in the Manhattan District Attorney’s office and the New York Attorney General’s office Investor Protection / Financial Crimes Units and practicing law for over 20 years, we have the experience to give your matter the appropriate attention it deserves and so as to achieve results it deserves.

To see if these losses are recoverable, please contact the Law Offices of Stuart D. Meissner LLC in New York, NY. 212-764-3100

See our April 3, 2008 posting relating to Auction Rate Securities: Meissner Firm Criticize FINRA Release

See our April 4, 2008 posting relating to Auction Rate Securities: Filing Complaints with Regulators / Participating in Class Actions

See our April 10, 2008 posting relating to Dow Jones Newswire: Auction Rates Upset Bank-Broker Clients (4/10/08)