Dawn Bennett Barred – How to Recover Investment Losses

According to various reports, the Securities and Exchange Commission has barred Dawn Bennett from the securities industry for exaggerating her firm’s assets under management and investment performance to drum up business from wealthy clients. The commission also ordered Ms. Bennett and her firm to pay more than $4 million in fines and disgorgement.

The ruling, from Administrative Law Judge James Grimes, includes a civil penalty of $600,000 for Ms. Bennett and $2.9 million for Bennett Group.

The White Law Group represents several Dawn Bennett clients and continues to investigate the liability that her FINRA registered employer may have for failure to properly supervise her.

The SEC’s allegations in the case against Dawn Bennett:

– that Bennett attempted to attract new customers by overstating — in submissions to Barron’s and repeatedly on a radio show Bennett hosted called “Financial Myth Busting with Dawn Bennett.”

– that Bennett misrepresented the assets she managed to Barron’s which led Barron’s to list Bennett as No. 5 on its 2009 list of the Top 100 Women Financial Advisers and rank the firm second in its list of the 2011 Top Advisers in D.C.

– that former clients of Bennett’s lost millions of dollars after investing with her firm.

Brokerage firms are required to properly supervise all advisors they employ and to ensure that those advisors are complying with applicable FINRA rules and regulations.  If these allegations can be proven and if it can be demonstrated that Bennett’s former employer failed to properly supervise her, her employer may be held responsible for the losses in a FINRA arbitration claim.

According to her FINRA BrokerCheck, Dawn Bennett was registered with Western International Securities from October 2009 through December 2015 and with Royal Alliance from February 2006 through October 2009.

Dawn Bennett Barred by SEC

The White Law Group continues to investigate the Dawn Bennett case.  In November 2016, FINRA  filed a complaint alleging that Bennett sold $6 million in promissory notes involving her retail clothing business,  DJBennett.com owned by DJB Holdings, LLC.

FINRA ‘s recent complaint alleges Bennett, while associated with Western International Securities, Inc., had a retail clothing business called DJBennett.com owned by DJB Holdings, LLC.  FINRA found that during 2015 Bennett sold approximately $6 million in DJB convertible notes and promissory notes guaranteed by DJBennett.com, to approximately 30 investors. FINRA also uncovered evidence that Bennett may have misappropriated investors’ money, committed fraud, and engaged in undisclosed outside business activities and private securities transactions.

If you suffered losses investing with Dawn Bennett and would like a free consultation to discuss your litigation options, please call The White Law Group at 1-888-637-5510.

The White Law Group, LLC is a national securities fraud, securities arbitration, investor protection, and securities regulation/compliance law firm with offices in Chicago, Illinois and Franklin, Tennessee.  For more information on the firm and its representation of investors, visit http://whitesecuritieslaw.com.