Here is the second part of Chris’s blog on FINRA’s effort to make expungement harder and more expensive to obtain. It is remarkable to me just how blatant FINRA has been here in admitting the reasons for the rule amendments. Anyone who thinks that FINRA is a membership organization that actually cares for its members
Chris Seps
Chris focuses his practice on complex litigation and arbitration in the securities and commodities industries. His securities practice involves handling both customer and industry disputes, as well as regulatory matters, involving issues of fraud, suitability, breach of contract, wrongful termination, negligence, defamation on a Form U-5, breach of fiduciary duty, negligent misrepresentations, and violations of state and federal securities laws. His commodities practice involves handling a wide variety of matters including issues of churning, fraud, breach of fiduciary duty, unauthorized trading, failure to supervise, and NFA arbitration. He has litigated matters in a variety of forums including FINRA arbitration, NFA arbitration, and AAA arbitration, and he has represented clients in both state and federal courts. Chris also has experience defending industry members against regulatory actions brought by FINRA and the NFA. His experience in both the securities and commodities industries has exposed him to a variety of industry and customer situations, as well as a variety of products, including tenancies in common (TICS), real estate investment trusts (REITS), auction rate securities (ARS), swaps, bonds, futures, options, variable annuities, private placements, and other derivatives.
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FINRA Is About To Make It MUCH Harder To Obtain Expungement – Part One
By Chris Seps on
I apologize for the long break between blog posts, but I have been preparing for a two-week FINRA Enforcement hearing…to be conducted by Zoom! As is typical of most Enforcement cases that go to hearing, the Staff has insisted that — surprise! — my clients be permanently barred. So, while the method of communication will…
A Modest Proposal On The Appropriate Allocation Of Fees In Expungement Cases
By Chris Seps on
A couple of years ago, I complained about PIABA’s effort to make expungement even more difficult to obtain. Well, fast forward to June 1, and, as Chris Seps explains here, the SEC has approved the first proposed expungement rule change from FINRA, one that appears to serve no purpose other than to generate money for…
Do Customers Actually Use BrokerCheck? This FINRA Complaint Suggests They Don’t
By Chris Seps on
I heartily endorse this post from my colleague, Chris, who’s been quiet of late. It says a lot about FINRA, in terms of how it deigns to spend your assessment money, how fairness in the Enforcement process can be completely illusory, and how it is consistently unable to convince much of the investing public that…
FINRA Plays Guessing Game With Expungement Waiver Request
By Chris Seps on
When a registered rep contacts us about seeking expungement of customer complaints from his or her CRD record, we always respond that expungement is not a sure thing. It turns out that is more true than ever before because of the way FINRA is treating its “waiver” process.
You see, we recently participated in an…
Puerto Rico Customer Arbitrations: The Untold Story About Why So Many Settle
By Chris Seps on
Here is a piece from Chris Seps, who has a bit of a reputation around here for being angry. Judge for yourself. But, for what it’s worth, I do want to say that I have had the pleasure of being involved in several cases in which the subject of this post, Dr. Craig McCann, appeared…
(Another) Landslide Victory: FINRA Enforcement Offers ZERO Evidence Of Fraud
By Chris Seps on
At the end of last week, we received our second[1] decisive win in a FINRA Enforcement case in a matter of days. Following a two-day hearing back in July, the hearing Panel dismissed all charges against our clients Paul J. McIntyre and MSC-BD, LLC. While any victory is nice, and doing justice for a…
FINRA Discovery Guide’s Misguidance: Part 2
By Chris Seps on
I’ve previously posted about my frustration with the way the discovery guide is written, with particular attention focused on List 1 Item 10. See my prior post here. Item 14 causes me similar angst. Why? Because Item 14 is so poorly worded that, if read literally, almost no audit report will ever be responsive…
FINRA Discovery Guide’s Misguidance: Part 1
By Chris Seps on
FINRA’s Discovery Guide for Customer Disputes is not perfect. I think that FINRA would be the first one to admit that – which is why the Discovery Guide adopted under the Code of Arbitration Procedure for Customer Disputes has been revised three times in the past five years, and a task force has been set…
To Mediate or Not: Arbitration v. Enforcement
By Chris Seps on
I recently had two clients, both respondents in pending matters – ask me the same question in the same day: should I mediate this case? The answers I gave them differed dramatically, not just because the facts of each case were very different, but because one case was a customer arbitration, where we are defending…