registered representative

So, you’re a registered rep, working for a broker-dealer. Necessarily, you are registered with and subject to the oversight of FINRA, not a particularly happy proposition.  But at least you can take comfort in the fact that while FINRA may have the right to stick its nose into your securities business, what you do away…

The FINRA investigative process and the arbitration process exist side-by-side; at times, the misconduct that is alleged by a claimant in a Statement of Claim may simultaneously be the subject of an examination by Member Regulation, or even an Enforcement Complaint. Ordinarily, Enforcement doesn’t pay much attention to what happens in a parallel arbitration, except…

There have been some developments this week in a few matters on which I have previously offered my views. To help you stay on the cutting edge of financial world current events as you mingle at your upcoming Cinco de Mayo fiestas, here are three updates.  Two, not surprisingly, represent wins for the regulators.  The…

Two years ago, FINRA first proposed to the SEC a rule that would require brokers to disclose to clients not only when they receive compensation (including signing bonuses and other payments) to switch from one broker-dealer to another, but, worse, the amount of that compensation. The industry was seriously not pleased with the rule.  FINRA,…

Opening Session/Firm Culture/CCO Liability. If you are reading this blog, then you, like me, have been probably eagerly waiting for the start of SIFMA’s annual Compliance and Legal conference not just for the jumbo shrimp at the reception, but also to learn some insights from the regulators about their concerns and intentions. If you…

For some reason, a bunch of noteworthy events all happened around the same time this week, so please bear with me as I vent a little about them.  Individually, they are irritating; in the aggregate, they are borderline alarming.

First, the FINRA Wells process. I have blogged about this before, and how, in a…

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…

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…

With any luck, you can go your entire career in the securities industry without ever participating in the dreaded “Wells process.” And that’s a good thing, as the Wells process occurs only after FINRA has completed an examination and has concluded that whatever it has encountered is so serious that a formal disciplinary action is…