NEW YORK, Dec. 18, 2006 (PRIME NEWSWIRE) -- The Securities Arbitration Law Firm of Klayman & Toskes, P.A. ("K&T") (http://www.nasd-law.com), representing numerous aggrieved investors throughout the nation, announced today that New York State Regulators have filed a civil lawsuit against UBS Financial Services, Inc. (NYSE:UBS), alleging that the firm defrauded thousands of brokerage clients out of tens of millions of dollars by directing them to open costly fee-based accounts, also known as Insight One accounts, that they did not need. According to the complaint, "over one 18-month period, 31,565 accounts paid excessive fees of more than $51 million." Some UBS clients may even have paid the equivalent of $23,000 per trade. Further, the complaint alleges that brokers were encouraged to churn client accounts, and that UBS' monitoring of accounts was inadequate and failed to identify several low trading clients.
The nature of the recent suit is very similar to the cases the National Association of Securities Dealers ("NASD") filed last year against Morgan Stanley and Raymond James for failing to review their fee based accounts, to ensure that light trading clients were not overpaying. As a result of the NASD's investigations, Morgan Stanley and Raymond James paid a total of $2.25 million in fines and returned $4.74 million to clients.
Accordingly, K&T plans on assisting investors who were given inappropriate advice to open fee based accounts at UBS to proceed with securities arbitration claims before the NASD and the New York Stock Exchange Arbitration Forums. The sole purpose of this release is pursuant to K&T's investigation regarding this alleged wrongdoing. If you are an investor who maintained one or more fee based accounts at UBS, and believe you sustained financial damages, please contact Lawrence L. Klayman, Esquire of Klayman & Toskes, P.A. at 1-888-997-9956 to discuss this investigation, your legal options and/or the possibility of pursuing an individual securities arbitration claim against UBS. You may also visit us on the web at http://www.nasd-law.com