At the Bell

AmEx unit to settle a sex-bias action

American Express Financial Advisors Inc. has agreed to pay $31 million and change its practices for distributing leads to female financial planners as part of a class-action settlement that evolved out of a 1999 complaint filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

The action charged that female advisers were not given leads of the same quality as were given to men.

Terms of the settlement, which could involve as many as 4,000 women who worked for the Minneapolis-based unit of American Express Co. between December 1998 and March 2002, are subject to final approval by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

SEC votes this week on several issues

Internet-based investment advisers that manage less than $25 million could register with the Securities and Exchange Commission instead of all the states in which they operate under a proposal to be voted on at the agency’s Thursday meeting.

The SEC also is planning to vote on proposals to allow issuers of variable life insurance to file simplified prospectuses, much like those in use for several years for mutual funds.

Use of such simplified prospectuses has been called for by the insurance industry.

Other proposals to be voted on include requiring company executives and directors to report certain transactions involving company securities, and changing the definition of equity securities to include futures.

N.Y. broker-dealer guilty of fraud

Six former principals and securities brokers of American Capital Securities Inc., a startup broker-dealer in New York, pleaded guilty last week in federal district court in Manhattan to defrauding more than 100 investors in the United States of more than $1 million.

The defendants pleaded guilty to conspiracy and fraud charges resulting from a joint investigation by the office of the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York and the state’s attorney general.

They were charged with selling American Capital common stock and warrants through fraudulent means, including using “boiler room” sales tactics and making false statements about the company’s existing business and its plans.

CIBC adds team for convertibles

CIBC World Markets Corp. in New York is adding to its U.S. equities convertible-bond team. A group of five professionals moving over from ABN AMRO Inc.’s New York office will be led by Doug Fincher.

CIBC World Markets is the investment banking arm of the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce.

Mr. Fincher will be a managing director.

Distributor group chooses president

GAMA International, a Falls Church, Va., association for distribution management in insurance and financial services with nearly 6,000 members, chose Phillip C. Richards, a certified financial planner, as its president Friday at its annual convention, held in Orlando, Fla.

Mr. Richards is chairman and CEO of the affiliated companies that operate under the name North Star Resource Group in Minneapolis.