Opening Bell: 4.15.15

SEC Reaches Settlement with Former Freddie Mac Executives (WSJ)
The civil case, filed in 2011, had alleged that three Freddie executives, including former Chief Executive Officer Richard Syron, knowingly misled investors about the volume of risky mortgages the company purchased as the housing boom came to an end. The SEC had sought financial penalties against the executives and an order barring them from serving as officers and directors at other companies. Instead, the executives agreed for a limited time not to sign certain reports required by chief executives or finance chiefs and to pay a total of $310,000 to a fund meant to compensate defrauded investors. Those amounts will be paid by insurance from Freddie Mac that covered the executives. The other two executives were Patricia Cook, the former chief business officer, and Donald Bisenius, former senior vice president of credit policy and portfolio management.

Shopify Files for IPO With Plan for U.S.-Canada Dual Listing (Bloomberg)
Shopify filed a $100 million placeholder amount with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, a figure used to calculate fees that may change. Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse Group AG and Royal Bank of Canada are managing the offering. The Ottawa-based company plans to use the proceeds from the IPO for working capital and to fund growth strategies.

Obama to remove Cuba from terror list (FT)
President Barack Obama is to remove Cuba from the US list of state sponsors of terrorism, in a move that will further normalise relations and ease Havana’s access to financing from international banks.

Regulators Call for Short-Term Loan Changes to Handle ‘Too-Big-to-Fail’ (WSJ)
The regulators are calling for changes to terms of contracts called repurchase agreements, or repos, and securities-lending agreements, the people familiar said. In these arrangements, trading firms, banks and investment companies typically swap cash and securities with promises to reverse the transactions in the future. The plan is regulators’ latest bid to end so-called “too-big-to-fail” firms, which are so interconnected that regulators believe their demise risks bringing the entire financial system to its knees. In a bid to prevent a replay of 2008, when Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. failed after running out of appropriate collateral for repo loans, regulators have made separate changes to the workings of the repo markets.

Boy Trashed Mom's Car Over Seized Phone (TSG)
An Ohio boy was arrested Friday for trashing his mother’s car after she took away his cell phone as punishment for refusing to clean his room, police say. As detailed in a Dayton Police Department report, the 13-year-old initially spit on his mother and threw a Gatorade bottle at his stepfather before running out of the family’s residence and setting his sights on a 2001 Honda Accord. The boy jumped on the car, “smashing the front windshield.” He then began “jumping on the roof smashing it in.” The auto was “severely damaged,” noted cops who estimated the monetary loss at $1000.

Castleton Emerges as Leading Bidder for Morgan Stanley Oil Business (WSJ)
Morgan Stanley is nearing a deal to sell its oil-trading and storage business, potentially bringing to a close the bank’s lengthy effort to jettison the unit. Trading firm Castleton Commodities International LLC has emerged as the leading bidder and is offering more than $1 billion for the business, according to people familiar with the situation. Castleton’s backers include hedge-fund heavyweights Glenn Dubin and Paul Tudor Jones.

EU Accuses Google of Antitrust Violations; Starts Android Probe (Bloomberg)
The European Union escalated its four-year-old probe into Google Inc., accusing the Internet giant of abusing its dominance of the search-engine market and starting a new investigation into its Android mobile-phone software.

Investors Hunt Bargains in European Corporate Bonds (WSJ)
“This is just a bit of indigestion,” said Ariel Bezalel, a fund manager at Jupiter Asset Management, which oversees £32 billion ($47.3 billion) in London. “We’re still happy to buy credit. There’s a huge wall of money coming from the ECB.”

Sheldon Silver’s Son-in-Law Is Arrested and Charged With Securities Fraud (Dealbook)
A son-in-law of the former State Assembly speaker was arrested on Monday and accused of defrauding investors out of $7 million, according to a criminal complaint unsealed in federal court. The defendant, Marcello Trebitsch, 37, of Brooklyn, told investors that he would use their money to trade in securities through his investment fund, and promised them double-digit returns with very low risk, according to a statement from the office of Preet Bharara, the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York. Mr. Trebitsch’s wife, Michelle Trebitsch, is the daughter of Assemblyman Sheldon Silver, the former speaker who has been indicted on corruption charges.

Man Pretends He's A Cop, Pulls Over Detectives (HP)
John Arthur Benedict, 69, was arrested Saturday after cops say he tailed and then pulled over a pair of undercover detectives with the Lee County Sheriff's Office while impersonating an officer. The officers drove a white, unmarked SUV that Benedict later claimed he saw speeding. Police said that the fake cop drove a Crown Victoria with strobe lights and a "police interceptor" emblem on it. From afar the cruiser looked legit, so the driver of the undercover vehicle pulled over...Benedict later described the incident as a "senior moment," and said he'd never done anything like that before. However, the man's son admitted his dad had impersonated a cop before, turning on the strobe lights to direct traffic at accident scenes in Lee and Harris counties, according to the police report.