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Right after I posted this, FINRA announced a third AML settlement, this time with Interactive Brokers.  It was no small deal: it came with a $15 million fine and an obligation to retain an independent consultant.  (In addition to the FINRA AWC, Interactive simultaneously entered into settlements with the SEC — with another $11.5…

I hope that, by now, everyone understands and appreciates just how freakishly sensitive the regulators are to misconduct involving the wrongful sharing of confidential information.  If you don’t, however, FINRA was kind enough to publish two settlements in the last few weeks that work well to drive this concept home.  And both share an interesting…

Let’s take a step back from Covid-19 news, for a moment, which, rightfully, has dominated the news and everyone’s collective conscience, and focus on something that has been pervasive in the broker-dealer world for much, much longer than this virus, and which has taken its own toll on the industry in terms of dollars –…

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you know that one of my pet peeves with FINRA is its unrelenting zeal to bar people, permanently, from the securities industry.  Seemingly without much regard for the actual conduct at issue, or for the existence of mitigating circumstances.  It is literally a running joke in…

The day after Christmas, FINRA issued a press release announcing that five big firms – Citigroup, J.P. Morgan Chase, LPL, Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch – had each entered into a settlement, collectively agreeing to pay a $1.4 million fine.  Their offense?  They each violated FINRA’s supervisory rules because for a number of years, dating…

What is it with big firms and fingerprints? You may recall back in October 2017, J.P. Morgan entered into an AWC with FINRA in which it agreed to pay a $1.25 million fine for the following, as described in FINRA’s press release about the case:

FINRA found that for more than eight years, J.P. Morgan did not fingerprint approximately 2,000 of its non-registered associated persons in a timely manner, preventing the firm from determining whether those persons might be disqualified from working at the firm. In addition, the firm fingerprinted other non-registered associated persons but limited its screening to criminal convictions specified in federal banking laws and an internally created list. In total, the firm did not appropriately screen 8,600 individuals for all felony convictions or for disciplinary actions by financial regulators. FINRA also found that four individuals who were subject to a statutory disqualification because of a criminal conviction were allowed to associate, or remain associated, with the firm during the relevant time period. One of the four individuals was associated with the firm for 10 years; and another for eight years.

Ok, now compare that description to this one, from a press release that FINRA issued just two days ago to announce an AWC that Citigroup entered into, and in which it, too, agreed to pay a $1.25 million fine:…
Continue Reading Big Firms Paying Big Fines: A Discussion Of Two FINRA Settlements

FINRA loves to tout its supposed intent to bring meaningful cases, cases that matter to the investing public, rather than enforcing “foot faults,” as it has been accused of doing over the years. My own experience with FINRA suggests that while it talks a big game, in reality, we all still live in foot-fault city.

I stumbled across this decision recently, and it serves as a good example of two problems that FINRA has. First, FINRA is, at times, maybe most times, hardly the model of efficiency when it comes to promptly bringing cases against perceived bad guys. Second, it reflects how FINRA is still willing to spend its finite resources, in terms of time, manpower, and money, on an utterly fruitless pursuit, resources that anyone would agree – including the FINRA lawyers who brought the case and the Hearing Officer who had to consider the evidence – would have been better spent on something else.

The case started out normally, with FINRA filing an Enforcement action against the broker-dealer in 2017, alleging a number of nasty sounding historical sales practice violations. According to the decision, however, and for reasons that went unexplained, the complaint was filed five years after the exam of the matter was started, and fully four years after the matter was referred to Enforcement. From the defense perspective, that is a long time. A long time for documents to be preserved, for witnesses’ memories to remain intact. Remember: FINRA is not restricted by statutes of limitations (like the SEC, or like civil litigants), but it is still supposed to be procedurally fair to respondents, and one aspect of that fairness is not waiting too long to file a complaint.…
Continue Reading A Glaring Example Of FINRA Dragging Its Feet, Culminating In A Pointless Default Decision

While 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…