PHILADELPHIA - TD Ameritrade is mounting its defense against a class action lawsuit against it that was filed in Philadelphia federal court on Nov. 3 by Marianne Antczak and others.
The plaintiffs brought this suit on behalf of herself and others situated “to secure redress from Defendants who enabled, facilitated, and concealed registered investment advisors who openly and notoriously pursued wildly unsuitable trading strategies using wildly unsuitable investments causing great loss in funds and securities held in TD Ameritrade brokerage accounts.”
The lawsuit names Bridget A. Fernandez as the broker/dealer, operating under the name of Ultimate Financial Investments, LLC, a TD Ameritrade representative.
Plaintiffs allege that Ultimate Financial Investments heavily over-concentrated their money in daily leveraged exchange traded funds and, to the great detriment of them, held onto these positions for weeks, months and years.
There is practically nothing left in the plaintiffs' TD Ameritrade brokerage account, they says. UFI employed this same wildly unsuitable investment strategy in most, if not all, of its customers, they claim.
After UFI ceased to function and TD Ameritrade knew that Bridget A. Fernandez was no longer licensed, TD Ameritrade concealed this from regulators as Fernandez “openly and notoriously continued to pursue the same wildly unsuitable trading strategy," plaintiffs claim.
Plaintiffs have demanded a jury trial and claim that a class action is “superior to all other available methods for the fair and efficient adjudication of this controversy since joinder of all members is impracticable.” They further state that as the damages suffered by individual class members involved a number of the companies within the TD Ameritrade family of companies, ”the expense and burden of individual litigation make it impossible for members of each Class to individually redress the wrongs done to them.”
On Feb. 8, TDA filed a motion to strike the class action allegations and compel arbitration or dismiss the complaint. TDA says that Plaintiff Marianne Antczak should be compelled to arbitrate her claims against the TDA Defendants in accordance with her arbitration agreement because “her putative class claims do not and cannot qualify for class treatment.”
TDA also says that the Court should dismiss the action under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.