broker-dealers

Once again, I found myself gritting my teeth in frustration after reading yet another PIABA report complaining about some perceived inequity in the FINRA arbitration process that cuts against customers. This week, PIABA released its study demonstrating that sometimes when claimants prevail in arbitrations against broker-dealers, the BD that lost is unable to pay the…

In Homer’s epic poem the Odyssey, Odysseus and the crew of his ship are faced with the impossible choice of either sailing closer to Charybdis, a whirlpool capable of sinking their entire ship, or, alternatively, to Scylla, a sea monster just as deadly.  Odysseus’ dilemma sprang to mind as I listened to a presentation…

Tis the season for announcing the year’s top examination priorities. This week, the SEC released its own examination priorities. Top priorities include:

  • liquidity controls;
  • public pension advisers;
  • product promotion;
  • exchange-traded funds; and
  • variable annuities.

Thematically, the SEC’s priorities adhere to its larger objectives: protecting retail investors (especially retirement savings); assessing market-wide risks; and utilizing data…

Yesterday, FINRA released its annual Examination Priorities Letter in which it set forth the top issues that would guide its examinations in the coming year. Running 13 pages in length (while complaining about having to be so “brief”), FINRA set forth some of the “many areas of potential concern” it expects to encounter this year.…

Right around Christmas, NASAA, the North American Securities Administrators Association, which is comprised of the securities regulators from each of the 50 states, released its annual list of the top five threats to investors.  To compile the list, NASAA polled each state’s securities commissioner to learn the “the five most problematic products, practices or…

Based on the definition employed by Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart in 1964, best execution is the opposite of hard-core pornography: no one seems to know it when they see it. Despite this (at best) fuzzy standard, FINRA and the SEC still require all broker-dealers to obtain best execution for their customers when they place…

I posted several blogs this summer about our victory over the SEC in the Robare case (which, naturally, has been appealed by the SEC’s unhappy Division of Enforcement). One of the key elements in our ability to prevail in that matter was my client’s extensive use of outside securities consultants to assist in the preparation…

It should be abundantly clear to everyone that BDs are required to arbitrate disputes with their registered reps. There are several reasons I can assert this with such a great deal of certainty.  First, and most obvious, there is a rule about it.  Rule 13200(a) of the Code of Arbitration Procedure provides that

[e]xcept as…