A private placement doesn't need to involve brokers or underwriters and instead they can usually be arranged through banks or specialist financial institutions.

One of the biggest current complaints involves brokers who post listings on their Web sites for the exclusive properties of other brokers.

A recently released survey of residential real estate transactions involving brokers showed Re/Max picking up the most market share of the country's seven biggest franchise brokerage chains.

The most common type of these groups involves brokers in a single pit who share revenues expenses.

In this case, an industry executive, upset by deals involving brokers and employee benefits insurers, telephoned the attorney general.

Israel, she said, has not seen much activity involving brokers.

Allegedly, he put together a complicated chain of supply, involving grape growers, wine co-operatives, brokers and merchants.

Eric Gonchar, a Manhattan real estate lawyer, said that in his experience, most deals involving brokers also involve yield spread premiums.

But if certain storm clouds burst over the industry, the alert investor may soon be able to grab something that wags might call rare: a good deal involving brokers.

The majority of those 774 cases involved brokers saying their firms had shortchanged them on compensation, Mr. Ryder explained.