United Planners' Financial Services of America a Limited Partner Settles SEC Charges Over Alleged Breaches of Fiduciary Duties

United Planners' Financial Services of America a Limited Partner agreed to pay a $600,000 civil money penalty to resolve SEC findings that it breached fiduciary duties to advisory clients, according to an SEC order released Oct. 30.

According to the order, from April 2020 through November 2023, United Planners and Cary Edward Urich, an investment adviser representative at the firm, invested advisory clients in five leveraged and/or inverse exchange traded funds for extended periods and in significant concentrations without a reasonable basis to do so. The order says Urich invested 54 clients in the products, and that those clients on average lost approximately 70% of their investments in them.

The order says the investments came to the attention of United Planners management on several occasions. In March 2020, a review group discussed imposing concentration limits on Urich's use of the products, but the firm ultimately declined to take any action, according to the order. "United Planners also failed to implement policies and procedures reasonably designed to prevent violations of the Advisers Act," the order says.

United Planners, which the order describes as a dually-registered investment adviser and broker-dealer, consented to the order without admitting the findings, except as to the Commission's jurisdiction. The firm was censured and ordered to cease and desist, and a Fair Fund was created for the penalty.

The order says the SEC filed a civil enforcement action against Urich in the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina.