U.S. investment advisory firm P/E Capital Investment Management Partners has settled charges from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) alleging that the firm charged clients undisclosed fees — in certain cases, allegedly logging into clients’ accounts and approving fees without the clients’ consent.
In July 2025, the SEC filed a complaint against the Chicago-based firm and its CEO, Eliseo Prisno, alleging that, between February 2019 and July 2023, they collected US$2.4 million in unauthorized quarterly fees from more than 200 clients. Those fees were applied on top of annual advisory fees that were disclosed, the regulator said.
The SEC alleged that the firm often orchestrated the unapproved fees, “by signing in to their clients’ brokerage accounts using their clients’ login credentials — frequently without their clients’ knowledge or consent — and then routing multifactor authentication texts to phone numbers under defendants’ control,” the regulator alleged in its complaint.
The firm and Prisno agreed to settle the charges, without admitting or denying the regulator’s allegations.
They consented to the entry of final judgments in the U.S. district court for the Northern District of Illinois, which imposed permanent injunctions against them, and stipulated that they must pay disgorgement with prejudgment interest, and a civil penalty, in amounts that are still to be determined by the court.