Piper Jaffray

Also Read

Piper Jaffray, now known as U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray, is a Minneapolis-based brokerage and investment banking firm that was formed in 1895. The company provides financial information, products, and services to businesses, individuals, and institutions. It operates more than 120 offices in 25 states, employs more than 2,900 investment bankers, sales and trading executives, research analysts, and financial advisors, and is one of the nation’s most powerful firms in its class.

Why is Piper Jaffray accused of fraud?
In one of the largest securities fraud cases in Minnesota’s history, U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray is accused of making more than 6,000 fraudulent transactions in the accounts of 38 of its investors between June 1999 and June 2001. The company also allegedly paid other firms to publish research on its underwriting clients but failed to ensure that those payments were disclosed and neglected to sufficiently supervise its divisions.

Specifically, Piper Jaffray is accused of:

Issuing research reports that violated NASD and NYSE rules to Esperion Therapeutics, Inc. and Triton Network Systems
Failing to disclose that it received more than $18 million in payment for research coverage performed for various companies
Failing to disclose that it paid portions of underwriting proceedings to other firms for research it performed
Neglecting to effectively monitor its research and investment banking divisions to ensure that both complied with federal securities laws and NASD and NYSE rules.

Return to the Stock Fraud Index