Securities Lawyers Blog
According to BrokerCheck records financial advisor Gary Meier (Meier), formerly employed by Boz & Company LLC (Boz) and Cambridge Investment Research, Inc. (Cambridge Investment) has been subject to at least eight customer complaints and two regulatory actions. According to records kept by The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), most of Meier’s customer complaints allege that Meier made was negligent, breached his fiduciary duty, and made unsuitable investments in penny stocks and low priced securities.
In February 2017 the State of Washington Securities Division found that from approximately 2008 to 2017 Meier made unsuitable investment recommendations to his client and engaged in other unethical business practices. The state found that Meier executed transactions in client accounts without obtaining prior client authority to do so and purchased speculative penny stocks for client accounts. It was found that Meier purchased the same three penny stocks for nearly all of his clients – Rentech, Cytodyn, or Provectus Biopharmaceutical stock – regardless of their investment profile. It was found that Meier added to client holdings of these three penny stocks and most of his client accounts were heavily concentrated in these three penny stocks. These purchases resulted in large losses in client accounts.
Washington State also alleged that Meier mislead clients in order to assuage investor concerns about the penny stocks. Meier purportedly provided clients with grossly exaggerated future values of the three stocks indicating that large returns in the near future would occur. Further, it was found that Meier was forced to resign from Cambridge Investment when the firm objected to Meier’s investment practices. Thereafter, it was found that Meier did not register with another firm until July 14, 2015, with Boz, an investment adviser owned by his son.