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Seems like just days ago I blogged about Jessica Hopper and her commitment to providing restitution to customers.  Since I posted that blog, there were two other settlements (which I added to that blog as updates) in which FINRA again seemed to prioritize restitution over the imposition of a fine.  Yesterday, however, FINRA announced a…

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…

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…

I have written a few times about FINRA’s ceaseless interest in bringing cases against registered reps who fail to update their Form U-4 in a timely manner to disclose the fact that a tax lien has been filed against them.  Or several tax liens.  The problem with these cases is not so much the sanctions that FINRA imposes, as they tend to be fairly modest, e.g., a fine of $5,000 or less plus a suspension, maybe of 30 or 60 days in length.  No, the problem is that FINRA often likes to characterize these failures as “willful,” which results in the registered rep being statutorily disqualified from continuing to work in the securities industry, necessitating the filing of a MC-400 application to seek FINRA’s approval to remain a registered rep notwithstanding the modest nature of the rule violation.

Well, this week, FINRA accepted a very interesting AWC from J.P. Morgan Chase, which included a $1.1 million fine, as a result of the fact that JPMC failed to update the Forms U-5 of 89 former registered representatives, over a six-year period, to disclose the fact that these RRs were the subject of an internal review concerning allegations that they had misappropriated or transmitted “proprietary Firm information,” took customer information in connection with the transfer to another broker-dealer, or violated some “investment-related banking industry standard of conduct.”[1]  A repeat violation for the firm, too.…
Continue Reading It Is Not Possible To Predict When FINRA Will Charge Something As Willful. Or Is It?

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