FINRA Orders Citigroup Unit To Pay $54 Million to Clients of Maddox Hargett & Caruso, P.C. in Arbitration Case

Citigroup has been ordered to pay a record $54 million to investors who suffered huge financial losses in Citi's MAT/ASTA municipal bond funds and several other purported fixed income-related products.

An arbitration panel of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) announced the decision on April 11, 2011. The investors in the arbitration case were jointly represented at the hearing by Steven B. Caruso of the New York City office of Maddox, Hargett & Caruso, P.C. and Philip M. Aidikoff & Ryan K. Bakhtiari of the Beverly Hills, California office of Aidikoff, Uhl & Bakhtiari.

As reported on April 13 by the Wall Street Journal, the award is the largest ever levied against a major Wall Street brokerage in favor of individual investors.

The ruling also included an assessment against Citigroup of $17 million in punitive damages, which is believed to be one of the largest awards of punitive damages in the history of securities arbitration. In addition, the award held Citigroup liable for the investors' expert witness fees, certain other arbitration-related expenses and all of the FINRA forum fees associated with the administration of the arbitration proceeding.

View the Complete Arbitration Award

If you are an institutional or retail investor and believe you may have been misled regarding ASTA-MAT-Falcon investments, please contact us. You may have a viable claim for recovery of your investment losses by filing an individual securities arbitration claim with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA).