In the midst of U.S. regulatory claims, UBS agreed to buy back $19 billion worth of auction-rate securities and pay $150 million in fines. This settlement agreement comes between Citigroup’s $7.5 billion in buy backs and Merrill Lynch’s $12 billion agreement.
“There is no way for the institutions to win this fight, and they know that,” Thomas Ajamie, a securities lawyer in Houston, who represents investors and won a $420 million arbitration award against Paine Webber Group.