Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/535/813/
Timestamp: 2019-04-26 05:47:48+00:00

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Respondent broker persuaded William Wood, an elderly man, to open a joint investment account for himself and his mentally retarded daughter. The Woods gave respondent discretion to manage the account and a general power of attorney to engage in securities transactions without their prior approval. When Mr. Wood died a few years later, all of the money he had entrusted to respondent was gone. Respondent was subsequently indicted on federal wire fraud charges for, inter alia, selling securities in the Woods' account and making personal use of the proceeds. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) then filed a civil complaint in the same District Court, alleging that respondent had violated § 10 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (Act) and the SEC's Rule 10b-5 by engaging in a scheme to defraud the Woods and misappropriating their securities without their knowledge or consent. Mter respondent's conviction in the criminal case, the District Court granted the SEC summary judgment in the civil case. The Fourth Circuit reversed and directed the District Court to dismiss the complaint, holding that neither the criminal conviction nor the allegations in the complaint established that respondent's fraud was "in connection with the purchase or sale of any security." Because the scheme was to steal the Woods' assets, not to manipulate a particular security, and it had no relationship to market integrity or investor understanding, the court held that there was no § lO(b) violation.
rity," maintaining that a broker who accepts payment for securities that he never intends to deliver, or who sells securities with intent to misappropriate the proceeds, violates § 10(b) and Rule 10(b)-5. This interpretation of the statute's ambiguous text in the context of formal adjudication is entitled to deference. See United States v. Mead Corp., 533 U. S. 218, 229-230. Neither the SEC nor this Court has ever held that there must be a misrepresentation about a particular security's value in order to run afoul of the Act. This Court disagrees with respondent's claim that his misappropriation of the proceeds, though fraudulent, does not have the requisite connection with the sales, which were perfectly lawful. The securities sales and respondent's practices were not independent events. Taking the complaint's allegations as true, each sale was made to further his fraudulent scheme; and each was deceptive because it was neither authorized by, nor disclosed to, the Woods. In the aggregate, the sales are properly viewed as a course of business that operated as a fraud or deceit on a stockbroker's customer. As in Superintendent of Ins. of N. Y. v. Bankers Life & Casualty Co., 404 U. S. 6; Wharf (Holdings) Ltd. v. United Int'l Holdings, Inc., 532 U. S. 588; and United States v. O'Hagan, 521 U. S. 642, all cases in which this Court found a § 10(b) violation, the SEC complaint here describes a fraudulent scheme in which the securities transactions and breaches of fiduciary duty coincide. Those breaches were therefore "in connection with" securities sales within § lO(b)'s meaning. Pp. 819-825.
238 F.3d 559, reversed and remanded.
Matthew D. Roberts argued the cause for petitioner.
With him on the briefs were Acting Solicitor General Clement, Deputy Solicitor General Kneedler, David M. Becker, Jacob H. Stillman, Richard M. Humes, Katharine B. Gresham, and Susan S. McDonald.
Steven H. Goldblatt argued the cause for respondent.
*Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed for AARP et al. by Deborah M. Zuckerman, Stacy J. Canan, Michael R. Schuster, and Kevin Roddy; and for NASD Regulation, Inc., by F. Joseph Warin, Douglas R. Cox, Andrew S. Tulumello, and Elisse B. Walter.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a civil complaint alleging that a stockbroker violated both § 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, 48 Stat. 891, as amended, 15 U. S. C. § 78j(b), and the SEC's Rule 10b-5, by selling his customer's securities and using the proceeds for his own benefit without the customer's knowledge or consent. The question presented is whether the alleged fraudulent conduct was "in connection with the purchase or sale of any security" within the meaning of the statute and the Rule.
Between 1987 and 1991, respondent was employed as a securities broker in the Maryland branch of a New York brokerage firm. In 1987, he persuaded William Wood, an elderly man in poor health, to open a joint investment account for himself and his mentally retarded daughter. According to the SEC's complaint, the "stated investment objectives for the account were 'safety of principal and income.'" App. to Pet. for Cert. 27a. The Woods granted respondent discretion to manage their account and a general power of attorney to engage in securities transactions for their benefit without prior approval. Relying on respondent's promise to "conservatively invest" their money, the Woods entrusted him with $419,255. Before Mr. Wood's death in 1991, all of that money was gone.
42a. Each of the other counts alleged that he made wire transfers between Maryland and New York that enabled him to withdraw specified sums from the Woods' accounts. Id., at 42a-50a. Some of those transfers involved respondent writing checks to himself from a mutual fund account held by the Woods, which required liquidating securities in order to redeem the checks. Respondent was convicted on all counts, sentenced to prison for 52 months, and ordered to pay $10,800 in restitution.
After respondent was indicted, the SEC filed a civil complaint in the same District Court alleging that respondent violated § 10(b) and Rule 10b-5 by engaging in a scheme to defraud the Woods and by misappropriating approximately $343,000 of the Woods' securities without their knowledge or consent. Id., at 27a. The SEC moved for partial summary judgment after respondent's criminal conviction, arguing that the judgment in the criminal case estopped respondent from contesting facts that established a violation of § 10(b).1 Respondent filed a motion seeking discovery on the question whether his fraud had the requisite "connection with" the purchase or sale of a security. The District Court refused to allow discovery and entered summary judgment against respondent. It enjoined him from engaging in future violations of the securities laws and ordered him to disgorge $343,000 in ill-gotten gains.
1 The scope of Rule lOb-5 is coextensive with the coverage of § 10(b), see United States v. O'Hagan, 521 U. S. 642, 651 (1997); Ernst & Ernst v. Hochfelder, 425 U. S. 185, 214 (1976); therefore, we use § lO(b) to refer to both the statutory provision and the Rule.
rity." Id., at 565. Ultimately, the court refused "to stretch the language of the securities fraud provisions to encompass every conversion or theft that happens to involve securities." Id., at 566. Adopting what amounts to a "fraud on the market" theory of the statute's coverage, the court held that without some "relationship to market integrity or investor understanding," there is no violation of § 10(b). Id., at 563.
We granted the SEC's petition for a writ of certiorari, 534 U. S. 1015 (2001), to review the Court of Appeals' construction of the phrase "in connection with the purchase or sale of any security." Because the Court of Appeals ordered the complaint dismissed rather than remanding for reconsideration, we assume the allegations contained therein are true and affirm that disposition only if no set of facts would entitle petitioner to relief. See Hartford Fire Ins. Co. v. California, 509 U. S. 764,811 (1993). We do not reach the question whether the record supports the District Court's grant of summary judgment in the SEC's favor-a question that requires all potential factual disputes to be resolved in respondent's favor.3 We merely hold that the allegations of the complaint, if true, entitle the SEC to relief; therefore, the Court of Appeals should not have directed that the complaint be dismissed.
3 Nor do we review the District Court's decision denying respondent discovery-a decision that may have been influenced by respondent's frequent filings while incarcerated. The District Court noted that respondent "has been an active litigant before and during his incarceration." Id., at 16a, n. 1 (citing Zandford v. NASD, 30 F. Supp. 2d 1 (DC 1998); Zandford v. NASD, 19 F. Supp. 2d 1 (DC 1998); Zandford v. NASD, 19 F. Supp. 2d 4 (DC 1998); Zandford v. Prudential-Bache Securities, Inc., 112 F.3d 723 (CA4 1997); Zandford v. Prudential-Bache Securities, Inc., 111 F.3d 963 (DC 1998) (judgt. order); Zandford v. Prudential-Bache Securities, Inc., Civ. Action No. 94-0036, 1995 WL 507169 (D. D. C., Aug. 15, 1995); Zandford v. Prudential-Bache Securities, Inc., Civ. Action No. HAR-90-2568, 1994 WL 150918 (D. Md., Feb. 22, 1994); Zandford v. NASD, Civ. Action No. 93-1274,1993 WL 580761 (D. D. C., Nov. 5,1993)).
Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act makes it "unlawful for any person ... [t]o use or employ, in connection with the purchase or sale of any security ... , any manipulative or deceptive device or contrivance in contravention of such rules and regulations as the [SEC] may prescribe." 15 U. S. C. § 78j. Rule 10b-5, which implements this provision, forbids the use, "in connection with the purchase or sale of any security," of "any device, scheme, or artifice to defraud" or any other "act, practice, or course of business" that "operates ... as a fraud or deceit." 17 CFR § 240.10b-5 (2000). Among Congress' objectives in passing the Act was "to insure honest securities markets and thereby promote investor confidence" after the market crash of 1929. United States v. O'Hagan, 521 U. S. 642, 658 (1997); see also United States v. Naftalin, 441 U. S. 768, 775 (1979). More generally, Congress sought "'to substitute a philosophy of full disclosure for the philosophy of caveat emptor and thus to achieve a high standard of business ethics in the securities industry.'" Affiliated Ute Citizens of Utah v. United States, 406 U. S. 128, 151 (1972) (quoting SEC v. Capital Gains Research Bureau, Inc., 375 U. S. 180, 186 (1963)).
if it is reasonable, see United States v. Mead Corp., 533 U. S. 218, 229-230, and n. 12 (2001). For the reasons set forth below, we think it is. While the statute must not be construed so broadly as to convert every common-law fraud that happens to involve securities into a violation of § 10(b), Marine Bank v. Weaver, 455 U. S. 551, 556 (1982) ("Congress, in enacting the securities laws, did not intend to provide a broad federal remedy for all fraud"), neither the SEC nor this Court has ever held that there must be a misrepresentation about the value of a particular security in order to run afoul of the Act.
was deceptive because it was neither authorized by, nor disclosed to, the Woods. With regard to the sales of shares in the Woods' mutual fund, respondent initiated these transactions by writing a check to himself from that account, knowing that redeeming the check would require the sale of securities. Indeed, each time respondent "exercised his power of disposition for his own benefit," that conduct, "without more," was a fraud. United States v. Dunn, 268 U. S. 121, 131 (1925). In the aggregate, the sales are properly viewed as a "course of business" that operated as a fraud or deceit on a stockbroker's customer.
limited to serving that objective alone. Ibid. ("We agree that Congress by § 10(b) did not seek to regulate transactions which constitute no more than internal corporate mismanagement. But we read § 10(b) to mean that Congress meant to bar deceptive devices and contrivances in the purchase or sale of securities whether conducted in the organized markets or face to face").
Like the company directors in Bankers Life, the Woods were injured as investors through respondent's deceptions, which deprived them of any compensation for the sale of their valuable securities. They were duped into believing respondent would "conservatively invest" their assets in the stock market and that any transactions made on their behalf would be for their benefit for the "'safety of principal and income.''' App. to Pet. for Cert. 27a. The fact that respondent misappropriated the proceeds of the sales provides persuasive evidence that he had violated § 10(b) when he made the sales, but misappropriation is not an essential element of the offense. Indeed, in Bankers Life, we flatly stated that it was "irrelevant" that "the proceeds of the sale that were due the seller were misappropriated." 404 U. S., at 10. It is enough that the scheme to defraud and the sale of securities coincide.
transactions for their benefit, but it undermines the value of a discretionary account like that held by the Woods. The benefit of a discretionary account is that it enables individuals, like the Woods, who lack the time, capacity, or know-how to supervise investment decisions, to delegate authority to a broker who will make decisions in their best interests without prior approval. If such individuals cannot rely on a broker to exercise that discretion for their benefit, then the account loses its added value. Moreover, any distinction between omissions and misrepresentations is illusory in the context of a broker who has a fiduciary duty to her clients. See Chiarella v. United States, 445 U. S. 222, 230 (1980) (noting that "silence in connection with the purchase or sale of securities may operate as a fraud actionable under § 10(b)" when there is "a duty to disclose arising from a relationship of trust and confidence between parties to a transaction"); Affiliated Ute Citizens of Utah v. United States, 406 U. S., at 153.
in this case the SEC claims respondent sold the Woods' securities while secretly intending from the very beginning to keep the proceeds. In Wharf, the fraudulent intent deprived the purchaser of the benefit of the sale whereas here the fraudulent intent deprived the seller of that benefit, but the connection between the deception and the sale in each case is identical.
rities transaction and the fraud was not complete before the sale of securities occurred.
As in Bankers Life, Wharf, and O'Hagan, the SEC complaint describes a fraudulent scheme in which the securities transactions and breaches of fiduciary duty coincide. Those breaches were therefore "in connection with" securities sales within the meaning of § lO(b).4 Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
4 Contrary to the Court of Appeals' prediction, 238 F.3d 559, 566 (CA4 2001), our analysis does not transform every breach of fiduciary duty into a federal securities violation. If, for example, a broker embezzles cash from a client's account or takes advantage of the fiduciary relationship to induce his client into a fraudulent real estate transaction, then the fraud would not include the requisite connection to a purchase or sale of securities. Tr. of Oral Arg. 16. Likewise, if the broker told his client he was stealing the client's assets, that breach of fiduciary duty might be in connection with a sale of securities, but it would not involve a deceptive device or fraud. Cf. Santa Fe Industries, Inc. v. Green, 430 U. S. 462, 474-476 (1977).

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