Fiduciary Duties

A $5 million putative class of plaintiffs accusing UBS AG of soliciting to elderly investors risky mutual funds that ended up losing billions asked a Puerto Rico federal court last week to block UBS' attempt to transfer the suit to New York, noting the strong ties the case has to Puerto Rico. The plaintiffs instead suggested consolidating their case with a similar one currently pending. The case at hand alleges UBS Puerto Rico and Popular Securities LLC breached their fiduciary and contractual duties to thousands of investors by selling them risky closed-end mutual fund securities made specifically for Puerto Rico. The suit was originally filed in the Southern District of New York earlier this summer but was voluntarily dismissed so that it could be filed in Puerto Rico, after discussions between the two groups of plaintiffs discovered that their two cases shared common legal and factual issues. The investors allege that the defendants misrepresented twenty-three closed-end mutual funds, which invested [...]