Oppenheimer also said that last month it was removed as a defendant from the class-action suit connected to the case by a U.S. District Court judge in Georgia.
In the Finra ruling, the arbitration panel awarded the 12 claimants compensatory damages of $5.7 million, RICO damages of $14.2 million and punitive damages, attorneys’ fees and costs of $16.8 million. The claimants, according to Finra, were Donald Robinson, Timothy and Sharon Padden, Rhett Rainey, the Kelly A. Rainey Trust, Toucan Holdings LP, Robert Goodman, Robert Daniel Burgner (individually and as trustee of the Burgner Family Charitable Remainder Trust), Douglas Kasemeier, Wesley Callaway and Billy Loveless.
In June, the SEC filed an additional complaint in U.S. District Court charging three advisors with participating in the scheme with Woods. The three, Michael Mooney, Britt Wright and Penny Flippen, are former investment advisor representatives of Southport Capital, a firm owned by Woods. (Southport’s corporate name is Livingston Group Asset Management Company.)
In its complaint, the SEC said Woods and Horizon, through Southport's advisors, raised more than $600,000 per month in new investments right up until the time of the asset freeze a year ago.
"Woods and other investment adviser representatives at Southport told clients that they would receive returns of 6% to 7% interest, guaranteed for two to three years, for non-specific investments in a fund called 'Horizon Private Equity,'" the SEC complaint said. "Woods and his cohorts at Southport generally told investors that Horizon would earn a return by investing their money in, for example, government bonds, stocks or small real estate projects; investors were not told that their money would or could be used to pay returns to earlier investors. But that is exactly what the defendants did."