A Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) panel recently ordered Primesolutions Inc. and its owner and President, Victor L. Bull, to pay damages and costs of more than $100,000 to two clients in Cleveland, Ohio. The husband and wife investors lost $92,500 in investments with KGTA Petroleum. Jerry Cicolani, the Primesolutions broker, recommended KGTA to the couple and other investors without the knowledge or approval of his member firm. This is commonly referred to as “selling away” and is when a broker solicits the sale of a security that is not offered by his member firm. It is against securities rules and regulations. For the particular KGTA sale, the investment did not garner enough revenue through its purchase and resale of oil and petroleum products. It used the money it gained from newer investors to pay off older ones in a classic ponzi scheme. Jerry Cicolani pled guilty to criminal charges associated with the sale of the product. The arbitration panel decided in favor of the investors stating: Primesolutions and its owner and operator, Victor L. Bull, had a duty under industry rules to implement a supervisory system that is designed to detect and prevent the type of misconduct that occurred.
Jerry Cicolani was registered with Merrill Lynch in Akron, Ohio from October 1991 until September 2010 and Primesolutions in Cleveland, Ohio from August 2010 until May 2014. He has 69 customer disputes against him, three of which are pending. He has one civil action against him, which is also pending. He has since been barred from the industry by FINRA and the FBI charged him with selling unregistered securities to 39 investors who lost $7 million. He took $5 million of that in commissions for himself. If you would like to file a claim against Jerry Cicolani and his former firm, Primesolutions, you may do so by calling our law offices in Chicago at 312-332-4200 and speaking to an attorney about your options. Primesolutions may be responsible for your financial losses and can be sued in the FINRA arbitration forum. There is no obligation and we take cases on a contingency fee basis only.
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