Yesterday, the SEC held its 2015 “National Compliance Outreach Program for Broker-Dealers.” The program was designed to “provide[] an open forum for regulators and industry professionals to share strong compliance practices and promote the exchange of ideas to develop an effective compliance structure.” In the spirit of this cooperation, SEC Chairwoman White opened the conference
Enforcement
For Those About to be Suspended: The Guessing Game is Over Whether You Can Receive Your Trails
By UB Greensfelder on
Posted in Disciplinary Process, Enforcement, FINRA, Rule 2040, Rule 8311, Sanctions, Supervision, suspension, Trail commissions
There are lots of FINRA rules, so many that some don’t get the attention they deserve because others, like the suitability rule or the supervision rule, generally hog the limelight. Moreover, some rules have such narrow application that you may not realize they even exist because they impact only a very few people or entities.…
David Slays Goliath…And Goliath Is Pissed
By UB Greensfelder on
I reported a few weeks ago on the victory that my clients, Mark Robare and Jack Jones, achieved in the administrative proceeding that the SEC initiated against them last year. Against all odds, they convinced Judge Grimes that not only had they not committed the fraud claimed by the SEC, but, in Judge Grimes’ words,…
FINRA’s Code Of Procedure: Unfair To The Gander
By UB Greensfelder on
We have complained before in this blog about some of the obvious inequities associated with the FINRA Enforcement process that disfavor respondents. But I heard of a new one this week from a colleague, so I thought I would take the opportunity to revisit the issue.
While there are several things problematic about the Code…
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…
Day Two of FINRA’s Annual Conference
By UB Greensfelder on
I wish I was able to report some fireworks, or something semi-controversial, but FINRA and its hand-picked panelists managed to avoid saying anything particularly remarkable in any way. If you have never attended one of these conferences, and think that people come to learn cutting edge strategies, forget it. It is all very basic, very…
Day One of FINRA’s Annual Conference
By UB Greensfelder on
Here are my thoughts after Day One.
At a minimum, you would have to admit that FINRA has a sense of humor: the song they played when Rick Ketchum, FINRA’s Chairman, was introduced to give his keynote speech was “Why Can’t We Be Friends,” the 1975 song by War. Predictably, there were few laughs after…
FINRA’s New Sanction Guidelines: The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same
By UB Greensfelder on
Just a week ago, I ran a post about FINRA’s Sanction Guidelines, suggesting that they appear to have no relevance anymore, given the vast disparity between fines that FINRA is actually imposing in settled cases, on the one hand, and the supposed maximum fines described in the Sanction Guidelines, on the other. In an excellent…
Do The FINRA Sanction Guidelines Continue To Have Any Relevance?
By UB Greensfelder on
I read with interest the press release FINRA issued this week announcing an $11.7 million settlement with LPL, principally over what FINRA characterized as “widespread supervisory failures.” There were two things most noteworthy to me.[1] The first, interestingly, is not the size of the monetary sanctions (a $10 million fine plus $1.7 million in…
The True Definition of a FINRA “OTR”: “O”utrageous “T”ime and “R”esources”
By UB Greensfelder on
Before I became a District Director for NASD, I was an attorney with its Department of Enforcement. In those days, I would occasionally take someone “on the record,” but only when it was clear that a formal disciplinary action, i.e., a complaint, would be forthcoming. The purpose of the OTR was principally to memorialize and…