By Alan Wolper on Posted in Disciplinary Process,Enforcement,Examination,FINRAWhile I feel I have enjoyed as much success defending respondents in FINRA Enforcement matters as anyone, I am still careful to caution clients who are unwilling to consider any settlement that going toe-to-toe with FINRA at a hearing is always a difficult proposition, even though they are presumed innocent and FINRA bears the burden… Continue Reading
By Chris Seps on Posted in BrokerCheck,Enforcement,FINRAI 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 it… Continue Reading
By Alan Wolper on Posted in Disciplinary Process,FINRA,High-Risk firmsReading Reg Notice 19-17 makes me think of the legal arguments that I’ve recently read regarding whether a president can be found guilty of obstructing justice if the actions in question were taken out in the open, for everyone to see. Here, FINRA’s proposed power grab is simply outrageous, but, you got to give them… Continue Reading
By Alan Wolper on Posted in FINRA,High-Risk firmsI apologize for all the posts this week, but I am traveling and am in a different time zone, so I am awake at hours when, ordinarily, I would be asleep, giving me time to muse. Anyway, given that, I will not test your willingness to indulge my random thoughts a third time in one… Continue Reading
By Alan Wolper on Posted in Disciplinary Process,Enforcement,FINRA,SanctionsI have written before about the troubling lack of clarity regarding the tangible benefit of self-reporting rule violations to FINRA. While FINRA purports to provide some potential advantage for doing so, it is so awfully loosy-goosy that it remains a relatively uncommon occurrence. That’s why when a case comes down that provides some clear indication… Continue Reading
By Alan Wolper on Posted in Disciplinary Process,Enforcement,FINRA,SanctionsWay back in 2006, NASD issued Notice to Members 06-55, which tweaked the Sanction Guidelines to allow not just the size of the firm to be taken into consideration when determining the appropriate sanctions to be meted out, but, more importantly, how well, or how poorly, the firm is doing on its income statement. Specifically,… Continue Reading
By Alan Wolper on Posted in Disclosure,FINRA,Registered RepresentativeFINRA came out with a slightly weird Regulatory Notice last week. In a succinct document, barely over two pages, FINRA addressed something that may, or may not, actually be of concern to anyone. In short, Regulatory Notice 19-10 states FINRA’s position on what a broker-dealer is supposed to tell the customers of a registered representative… Continue Reading
By Alan Wolper on Posted in Disciplinary Process,FINRA,High-Risk firmsIf you are a regular reader of this blog, then you know that over my last few posts, I have been talking about an increasingly visible effort by FINRA to turn its regulatory eye from rogue brokers – who have been an irritant to FINRA and NASD for decades – to rogue firms (my term,… Continue Reading
By Alan Wolper on Posted in FINRA,heightened supervision,High-Risk firms,Rogue repI told you two weeks ago in my blog post that this would happen. I told you that when Robert Cook announced the topics to be taken up at the February/March FINRA Board meeting in Boca Raton, he slipped and used the new phrase “high-risk firms.” Well, in yesterday’s announcement about what actually took place… Continue Reading
By Alan Wolper on Posted in FINRA,Rogue rep,Rule 3170,Taping RuleYesterday, FINRA sent a seemingly innocuous memo to member firms giving a brief outline of the subjects that its Board will take up at its meeting this week in sunny Boca Raton, Florida. (Wait, the Board isn’t meeting in Washington, as it normally does, but, rather, in south Florida? Oh, right, it’s February. Much better… Continue Reading
By Alan Wolper on Posted in Cybersecurity,FINRAYesterday, two of my colleagues here at Ulmer, Fran Goins and Michael Hoenig, published an article in @BLaw Insight in response to a recent report by FINRA outlining the best practices for BDs to deal with cyber threats. Since this is undoubtedly a subject of considerable interest to many of you, I wanted to share it right… Continue Reading
By Alan Wolper on Posted in FINRA,Rule 8210I have been waiting for a while to write about this issue, since it arose in an Enforcement case I handled for a client, and I wanted the matter to run its full course at FINRA before I started throwing stones. Sadly, there are so many things I could complain about here. The fact that… Continue Reading
By Michael Gross on Posted in Arbitration,FINRADoes 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… Continue Reading
By Alan Wolper on Posted in FINRA,Rule 2165,Rule 4512,Senior InvestorsThe securities industry’s concern over the aging of the U.S. population, specifically, aging investors, has, apparently, reached a fever pitch. Yesterday in New York, SIFMA hosted its “Senior Investor Protection Conference – One Year Later: FINRA Rules 2165 and 4512,” and, for a securities conference, it received pretty extensive news coverage. I saw at least… Continue Reading
By Alan Wolper on Posted in 529 Plan,FINRAAbout a year ago, the SEC offered investment advisors the unique opportunity to report themselves to the SEC if they sold mutual funds to their clients that offered a lower priced share class than the class actually selected by the advisor, but failed adequately to disclose the conflict of interest that created. For those advisors… Continue Reading
By Alan Wolper on Posted in Compliance,Examination,FINRA,Rogue repIn what has become an annual, but hardly exciting – I mean, it’s not like anxiously awaiting the day that pitchers and catchers report to Spring Training – tradition, with the turning of the calendar to the new year, FINRA has once again released a letter announcing what it deems to be its priorities for… Continue Reading
By Michael Gross on Posted in FINRA,Outside business activities,Rule 3270It is not a wise career move for a registered rep to leave his broker-dealer – thereby abandoning his customers, and affording competitors the opportunity to make his customers their own – and then to begin the long, expensive, and uncertain process of forming a FINRA-registered broker-dealer. Common sense, principles of fundamental fairness, and good… Continue Reading
By Alan Wolper on Posted in Arbitration,FINRA,PIABAWhat 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… Continue Reading
By Alan Wolper on Posted in Enforcement,Examination,FINRAOn Friday last week, FINRA released a report discussing the findings from its 2018 exams, providing what it described as “selected observations” that were deemed to have “potential significance.” Even with that tepid introduction, in theory, this is still a great idea, since anyone in the industry, even so-called “good” or “clean” firms, should welcome… Continue Reading
By Alan Wolper on Posted in Enforcement,FINRA,Rule 8210,UncategorizedIf you’ve read this blog for even a short while, you know my feelings on Rule 8210, or, more specifically, how FINRA uses that rule, i.e., as a cudgel to keep member firms and their associated persons in line. Endless 8210 requests for documents and information, sometimes asking multiple times for the same stuff, each… Continue Reading
By Alan Wolper on Posted in Disciplinary Process,Enforcement,FINRA,SanctionsLast year I wrote about FINRA’s effort to encourage firms to self-report their problems, pausing to wonder at the suggestion attributed to Jessica Hopper, a Senior Vice President with Enforcement, that cooperating with FINRA by self-reporting “not only fulfills a firm’s regulatory responsibilities, but it can also mean the difference between a slap on the… Continue Reading
By Alan Wolper on Posted in Arbitration,FINRA,PIABAI 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… Continue Reading
By Alan Wolper on Posted in Examination,FINRAAs I am (probably too) fond of reminding people, I was an English major, and pride myself, at least to some degree, on my ability to use words effectively to communicate clearly. I get easily frustrated, therefore, when I read or hear something that was purportedly designed to relate a specific message, but the message… Continue Reading
By Blaine Doyle on Posted in CFTC,Compliance,Crypto,Cybersecurity,FINRA,SECI recently had to the opportunity to sit in on a talk from high ranking CFTC and SEC enforcement officials at a local bar association meeting. The purpose of the get together was, in part, to let industry folks and their lawyers know what the regulators will be focusing on in the near future in… Continue Reading
