Protecting Investors Nationwide
_________________________________________

Arbitration and Litigation

Home About The Firm Attorneys Representative Cases Lehman/UBS Investors Tobacco Settlement FNM and FRE Pref. Stock Negligent Advice Choosing Financial Advisors Writings By Seth Lipner Senior Investors Verse by Prof. Lipner Consulting Services More Links Desk Reference

Deutsch & Lipner Files First Case Against UBS Based Upon the
Deceptive Sale of Lehman “Principal Protected” Securities

Deutsch & Lipner is pleased to announce that in November 2008, we filed what we believe was
the first case brought against UBS Securities for its sale of Lehman Brothers “Principal
Protected” securities. 

The case has been brought by a 65-year old New York accountant. His UBS “Financial Advisor” recommended that he purchase the investment, telling him that “the worst you can do is you get your money back.” But when Lehman Brothers filed bankruptcy, the truth was revealed, and investors in these securities have indeed lost their money. For this 65-year-old accountant, those losses represent 1/3 of his retirement assets. UBS told him that those assets were safely invested, a statement that was obviously untrue.

Deutsch & Lipner has made the following allegations UBS:

bullet

UBS marketed and sold Lehman Brothers' "100% Principal Protected Notes", "Return Optimization Seurities" and “Performance Securities with Contingent Protection” as low-risk investments that would provide investors with the safety associated with "capital preservation" 
          

bullet

These securities, which promised “Principal Protection”, were in fact nothing more than the unsecured, subordinated debt of Lehman Brothers Holdings, which at the time was a struggling, unregulated financial services company
          

bullet

The prospectus and other material used by UBS to sell these products hid a key risk –– that the securities were in reality just loans to Lehman Brothers Holdings
         

bullet

Representations that these securities we backed by zero-coupon bonds, options or other sophisticated financial hedging techniques were false
    

bullet

UBS underwrote over $1 billion in Lehman Brothers Holdings' "Structured Products", earning tens of millions in underwriting fees in the process.
    

bullet

UBS promised its ‘Financial Advisors’ extra economic incentives to sell these securities to UBS' customers

bullet

UBS continued to market and sell these securities as late as August 2008, without once changing its risk disclosures or recommendations

As we have for over 20 years, Deutsch & Lipner is pleased to be ahead of the crowd of lawyers who have announced that they are beginning to investigate these claims. Deutsch & Lipner has already read and analyzed thousands of pages of prospectuses and other material used by UBS, interviewed numerous former clients, and built a case of powerful and compelling of deception. For example, Deutsch & Lipner has found a document intended for Swiss clients of UBS that discloses the risk that eventually killed the Lehman investors; the analogous document intended for US-investors conspicuously omits that important risk.

Deutsch & Lipner has now filed 15 cases against UBS for sales of these products, and is working on several more. We intend to aggressively prosecute these claims, and we will be filing more cases in the coming days. Deutsch & Lipner is pleased to offer no-fee in-person or telephonic consultations with other victims of these deceptive sales.