About 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
FINRA
FINRA’s 2019 Examination Priorities Letter: Beware, More Of The Same Is Coming
By UB Greensfelder on
In 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…
Yes, You Can Form A Broker-Dealer Without Running Afoul Of FINRA’s Outside Business Activities Rule
By UB Greensfelder on
It 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…
The Disturbingly Cozy Relationship Between FINRA And PIABA
By UB Greensfelder on
What 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…
The Real Lesson From FINRA’s 2018 Exam Findings Report
By UB Greensfelder on
On 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…
The Rule 8210 Karma Train Runs FINRA Over
By UB Greensfelder on
If 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…
Money Talks, And FINRA Is Listening
By UB Greensfelder on
Last 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…
All’s Fair When It Comes To Arbitrator Ranking
By UB Greensfelder on
I 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…
FINRA Announces Changes To Its Exam Program. Or Does It?
By UB Greensfelder on
Posted in Examination, FINRA
As 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…
Tips For Staying Off The SEC’s Naughty List In 2019
By Blaine Doyle on
I 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…