Arbitration

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I was catching up on my reading and came across a column in Investment News by Mark Schoeff  that described the results of a recent FINRA arbitration, results which I found a bit alarming.  I caution you: reading too much into any arbitration award can be dangerous and/or foolhardy since they don’t always follow – or, occasionally, even slightly resemble – the rule of law.  Indeed, screwy arbitration awards abound, and sometimes all you can say is dang, glad it wasn’t me.  That’s why, in the eyes of the law, anyway, arbitration awards, even those that are well reasoned and sensible, do not constitute binding legal precedent.

Nevertheless, this award serves as a nice cautionary tale for firms that are willing to open accounts for advisory customers but not serve as the actual advisor, which is an altogether common practice in the securities industry.  Remember: investment advisors can recommend securities transactions, but they cannot actually effect any trades.  To make a securities trade that was recommended by an IA, the customer must have a securities account at some broker-dealer.  Some advisors are dually registered, and work for a BD, and that’s where the account is generally opened.  Many other advisors, however, are not associated with a BD, so their advisory clients need a brokerage account somewhere.  Often, that somewhere is a discount BD that charges low commissions, like TD Ameritrade, the respondent in this particular arbitration.…
Continue Reading TD Ameritrade Latest Victim Of Head-Scratching Arbitration Award

I read an article this week in Investment News with the following headline: “Brokerage Customers Winning More FINRA Arbitration Cases.” As a guy who defends customer cases, I was naturally intriguied by this. According to the article, “brokerage customers who do file claims against their registered representative or firm are faring better in the process this year. So far in 2019, 176 cases have been decided, and 44%, or 78 cases, resulted in the customer being awarded damages. That’s an uptick compared to recent history.” Wow, I thought, this could be a troubling trend.

But, then I looked at the statistics that FINRA Dispute Resolution publishes, and quickly realized that this headline, and this story, oversells the point in a big way.

The story correctly reports that customers have been awarded money in 44% of cases that went to hearing this year, and that this reflects an upwards trend. But, really, it’s hardly a significant increase. The percent of cases that result in something being awarded to customers look like this since 2014:…
Continue Reading All-Public Arbitration Panels Are Paying Out Money At An Unprecedented Rate…Just As PIABA Intended

If you read this blog even semi-regularly, you know that I have taken a few shots at PIABA. I think they’re well earned, but some people – particularly PIABA lawyers, not surprisingly – have suggested that I’m overdoing it. Well, if you ever had any doubt that the motivation behind pretty much everything that PIABA does is simply doing whatever it can to ensure that its attorneys get paid, just take a look at PIABA’s comment to FINRA’s recent proposal to address rogue broker-dealers.

I have already written about that proposal, which is flawed in a number of fundamental ways, in my view. As expected, it elicited a bunch of comments. PIABA submitted its own comment, naturally, and, in a development that surprised exactly no one, it stated that its principal concern with the proposed rules is that they “will not cure the long-standing unpaid arbitration award issue.” Well, there you go. Leave it to PIABA to take a proposal designed by FINRA to address misconduct by rogue brokers and rogue firms – or as FINRA expressly phrased it, “to address the risks that can be posed to investors and the broader market by individual brokers and member firms that have a history of misconduct” – and focus instead on another issue, i.e., the one component of that proposal that impacts PIABA members’ pocketbooks. That is, rather than acknowledging that the proposal’s primary goal is to eliminate (or at least deter) misconduct, PIABA has chosen instead to complain that perhaps the most ridiculous aspect of the rule proposal – the creation of a fund, sourced by the BD itself, with money that would not constitute an allowable asset in the firm’s net capital computation, and which cannot be used for any purpose other than the satisfaction of a customer claim – somehow doesn’t go far enough to ensure that arbitration claimants – and their lawyers, of course – get paid.…
Continue Reading Make No Mistake, PIABA Cares About One Thing: Getting Paid

Does FINRA have jurisdiction over me? This is a question that I regularly field at the outset of regulatory engagements. My answer differs depending on a number of factors, including the nature of a person’s role and duties at a firm, his or her registration status, when the alleged misconduct occurred, whether he or she…

What exists at the point where PIABA’s transparent self-interest in getting paid and FINRA’s historical lack of transparency about who is actually driving its agenda regarding arbitrations? This: a late December decision by FINRA to propose a rule that prohibits non-lawyers from representing – for a fee – customers in arbitrations, and an even more…

I just read an article about a research study conducted of FINRA arbitrations by three people associated with Harvard, Stanford, and the University of Texas, respectively, and their overarching conclusion is a doozy.  Now, admittedly, I have not read the study itself (as it costs $5 to get a copy), so I only know what…

Once upon a time, FINRA at least pretended that it was interested in maintaining a level playing field for claimants and respondents in the arbitrations it administers. Today, all that pretense has been jettisoned.  In Regulatory Notice 18-22, which seeks comments on FINRA’s proposal to require respondents to produce information relating to their insurance…