Ubs

UBS agreed to pay $23.3 million to settle allegations it steered customers into unsuitable fee-based accounts, New York Atty. Gen. Andrew Cuomo said Monday. The state accused UBS in December of improperly shifting customers into accounts that charge fees based on assets. Such accounts produce a more stable stream of revenue than commissions. The Switzerland-based financial services company will reimburse customers a total of $21.3 million and pay a $2-million penalty, Cuomo said.

Investment banking giant UBS said Tuesday that the Securities and Exchange Commission might bring civil charges against it over work the firm did for HealthSouth Corp., whose founder faces trial on allegations he masterminded a $2.7-billion accounting fraud. The case is an example of regulators' efforts to hold Wall Street financiers responsible if they are shown to have abetted corporate clients' wrongdoing.

Financial services giant UBS ousted its chief executive Thursday in a surprise move after three quarters of declining earnings. UBS, the world's biggest money manager, said Peter Wuffli, 49, "relinquishes all of his functions at UBS." He was succeeded by Marcel Rohner, 42, the Zurich-based company's deputy CEO. Marcel Ospel, 57, agreed to stay on as chairman for at least three years after the board rejected his proposal to have Wuffli replace him.

UBS PaineWebber's computer network was infected with a virus that has hindered brokers' ability to execute trades and retrieve client data. The firm said it was working to repair the problem and was investigating how the virus made its way into the internal browser-based system, blocking access to data and trade execution methods. The virus forced brokers to use back-up systems and phone trades to the NYSE.

Swiss banking company UBS, already writing down the value of some assets by $4.1 billion, warned investors Monday that its fourth-quarter results could be hit by a further downturn in the U.S. housing and mortgage markets. UBS said that although the quarter had started well, its exposure to the U.S.

An Orange County billionaire who pleaded guilty to filing a false tax return involving foreign banking accounts filed a lawsuit alleging that Swiss bank UBS duped him into skirting U.S. tax laws. Real estate developer Igor Olenicoff filed the lawsuit Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana, accusing the bank of telling him his fortune would be invested in accordance with U.S. tax laws, then hiding it in offshore entities.

Swiss banking giant UBS is closing its Dillon Read Capital Management hedge fund unit less than six months after opening its doors because the business plan proved prohibitively expensive and complicated, top bank executives said Thursday. It was an embarrassing about-face for the company, which 18 months ago took steps to create a separate alternative-investment and proprietary-trading unit and in November launched its first fund with $1.2 billion from outside investors.

A former account manager at a unit of UBS, Europe's biggest bank by assets, pleaded guilty Monday to helping a hedge fund manager steal about $2.5 million from investors, federal prosecutors said. Justin Paperny, 31, of Studio City pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit mail, wire and securities fraud, the U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles said in a statement. He faces as many as five years in prison. Paperny, who worked for UBS Financial Services Inc.

UBS agreed Thursday to pay $49.5 million to settle regulators' claims that it failed to supervise stockbrokers who helped hedge fund clients engage in abusive trading of mutual funds at the expense of other shareholders. The Swiss company will pay $24.8 million to New Jersey, $18 million to an investor-compensation fund and $5.8 million to the New York Stock Exchange, said New Jersey Atty. Gen. Peter Harvey and the NYSE.

UBS, Switzerland's largest bank, said Friday that it expected its second-quarter results to be "at or slightly below break-even" because of a tax credit that would at least partly offset investment losses. The bank also said it wouldn't need to ask for more capital when it reported the results next month. Analysts had been expecting a second-quarter loss of as much as $4.9 billion from the bank that had been hammered by big losses related to the U.S. sub-prime lending crisis.