Young Law Group, PC, announced today that it has secured a multi-million-dollar award on behalf of a whistleblower client resulting from the Securities and Exchange Commission’s $97 Million enforcement action against TIAA-CREF Individual & Institutional Services LLC, a subsidiary of Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America (TIAA).
The SEC whistleblower case alleged that from Jan. 1, 2013 through March 30, 2018, TIAA and its Wealth Management Advisers (WMAs) did not adequately disclose the full nature and extent of their conflicts of interest in recommending to clients that they roll over their retirement assets into a managed account program called “Portfolio Advisor.” The resulting SEC order found that TIAA failed to adequately disclose compensation practices that incentivized the firm and its WMAs to recommend Portfolio Advisor for reasons other than a client’s particular investment needs. This was misleading because TIAA’s financial incentives for WMAs rendered their advice non-objective and TIAA did not ensure that WMA’s recommendations were, in fact, in the best interest of its clients.
“Investment advisors are supposed to act in the best interest of their clients without conflicts and questionable judgment resulting from financial incentives to advisors,” stated Young Law Group founder, Eric L. Young. “Investment advisers must clearly and accurately disclose their conflicts of interest. The whistleblower, a former TIAA Wealth Management Advisor, discovered not only a lack of disclosure, but a concerted effort on behalf of TIAA and many WMAs to take advantage of clients as a result. Needless to say, such misconduct is abhorrent and so our client decided to step up and work with the SEC to help put an end to it.”
About Young Law Group
Since 2009, Young Law Group has represented clients in actions that resulted in recoveries of more than $3 billion on behalf of the federal and state taxpayers. YLG specializes in the representation of whistleblowers in qui tam actions filed under the False Claims Act, as well as the whistleblower programs of the SEC, the CTFC, and the IRS. YLG Founder Eric L. Young was named as one of two “Lawyers of the Year” in 2020 by the Taxpayers Against Fraud Education Fund, the leading organization dedicated to combatting fraud against the government.