NEW YORK, Dec. 29, 2008 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — The regulatory settlements
that forced UBS Securities to offer to repurchase all Auction Rate
Securities (“ARS”) that the firm had improperly sold to investors,
prior to the collapse of the ARS market in February of 2008, expired at
the close of business on December 19, 2008.
Maddox Hargett & Caruso, P.C. and Co-Counsel recommend that investors
who did not participate in the ARS repurchase program consider the
pursuit of their legal options against UBS Securities.
“Investors should be aware of the fact that their ability to force UBS
to repurchase the auction rate securities that had been improperly sold
to them has now expired,” said attorney Steven B. Caruso of Maddox
Hargett & Caruso, P.C. in New York City. “With the expiration of this
repurchase offer, investors are left with the option of either
continuing to be trapped in these illiquid securities until their
maturity dates or considering the initiation of an arbitration claim to
recover access to their funds.
“As a result of the evidence that was uncovered in the various
regulatory investigations involving UBS Securities this past summer, it
is clear that investors were misled into believing that ARS were a cash
equivalent, the liquidity risks associated with these securities were
concealed from them, and that UBS engaged in a concerted campaign to
dump these securities on investors so that the firm wouldn’t be left
holding the bag when the ARS markets were abandoned by UBS this past
February,” said attorney Philip M. Aidikoff of Aidikoff, Uhl &
Bakhtiari in Beverly Hills, California.
The UBS brokers who sold ARS are not targets of the investigation,
according to the investors’ legal team (www.subprimelosses.com) which
includes the firms of Aidikoff, Uhl & Bakhtiari, of Beverly Hills,
Calif.; Maddox, Hargett & Caruso, P.C., of Indianapolis, Ind. and New
York, N.Y.; Page Perry, LLC, of Atlanta, Ga.; and David P. Meyer &
Associates Co., L.P.A., of Columbus, Ohio.
