Lawyer Who Spotted Broker Fraud Rewarded With SEC Ordeal
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When Theodore Urban, general counsel at Ferris, Baker Watts Inc., spotted and questioned a broker’s suspicious trading patterns in 2007, he triggered a five-year probe by U.S. regulators who said he failed as a supervisor.
After the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission began its investigation, Urban, who had worked at the SEC and U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission before joining the broker-dealer, said he had urged senior executives to fire the broker. Even though an administrative law judge exonerated him, his ordeal didn’t end until Jan. 26, when the full commission dismissed the matter without an opinion.