Investors who lost money on UBS Group AG mutual funds stuffed with Puerto Rico government bonds can’t sue as a group, a federal judge said Monday, a setback in their efforts to collect from the Swiss financial services giant, the WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. The ruling by Judge Sidney H. Stein of the U.S. District Court in New York means that investors in closed-end mutual funds managed by UBS Financial Services of Puerto Rico Inc. must pursue their claims individually through arbitration, a more difficult path to recouping damages, rather than proceeding as a single, certified class. Investors have claimed that UBS brokers told them their mutual funds were safe when in fact their assets were heavily concentrated in just a few Puerto Rican municipal bonds and the funds had used leverage to improve returns. Judge Stein said the plaintiffs’ circumstances and their decisions to buy and sell were so dissimilar that their claims needed to be adjudicated case-by-case.
