FINRA

About a month ago, the SEC announced a settlement in a modest little case that has, nevertheless, managed to garner a lot of attention.  This is a result of the fact that one of the respondents was the CCO, i.e., the Chief Compliance Officer, of the co-respondent RIA.  Determining the particular circumstances under which CCOs…

There is no question in my mind that the quality of FINRA examiners is a bit uneven.  Some are smart and insightful and helpful; others are, well, not.  Most of the time, they do know what they’re talking about.  That means the opportunity to make legitimate arguments against exam findings can, at least sometimes, be…

Well, Memorial Day is just past us, so we all know what that means: it’s time for FINRA to conduct its first annual assessment of its member firms to determine whether they should be branded a “Restricted” firm under new Rule 4111, with all the benefits and privileges appurtenant thereto.  Given that it’s pretty clear…

Not too long ago, I wrote a piece complaining about (among other things) the fact that the potential arbitrators that FINRA rolled out to the parties in a particular arbitration I was handling skewed juuuuuuust a bit towards the older end of the age spectrum; indeed, the average age of the ten potential chairpersons was…

FINRA recently published a “Discussion Paper” on expungement of customer dispute information in which it outlines its plans going forward on revising the expungement process.  Expungement_Discussion_Paper.pdf (finra.org) (Let me just start by applauding FINRA for trying hard to get this right.  The current patchwork of expungement rules and guidance could use some improvements, and there…

Thanks to Chris for not only making the personal sacrifice of traveling from frigid Chicago to sunny Florida to attend the SIFMA Compliance and Legal conference last week, but for providing these helpful comments about the sessions he attended. – Alan

I attended the four-day SIFMA Compliance and Legal seminar last week, and there…

Let me say at the outset that I, myself, am an old (by most people’s definition, anyway), white man.  So, selfishly, I’ve got nothing against old, white men.  But, the fact is that FINRA arbitration panels are disproportionately populated by such guys.  And I am not sure that’s a good thing for the arbitral process. …

Let’s talk about commissions today.  Or, as they are sometimes referred to, transaction based compensation.  Specifically, who can receive commissions.  Actually, that’s not phrased correctly.  The correct phrasing of this issue, courtesy of FINRA Rule 2040, would be: to whom a broker-dealer may legally pay commissions?  According to that rule, BDs can only pay…