If you read this blog even semi-regularly, you know that I have taken a few shots at PIABA. I think they’re well earned, but some people – particularly PIABA lawyers, not surprisingly – have suggested that I’m overdoing it. Well, if you ever had any doubt that the motivation behind pretty much everything that PIABA does is simply doing whatever it can to ensure that its attorneys get paid, just take a look at PIABA’s comment to FINRA’s recent proposal to address rogue broker-dealers.

I have already written about that proposal, which is flawed in a number of fundamental ways, in my view. As expected, it elicited a bunch of comments. PIABA submitted its own comment, naturally, and, in a development that surprised exactly no one, it stated that its principal concern with the proposed rules is that they “will not cure the long-standing unpaid arbitration award issue.” Well, there you go. Leave it to PIABA to take a proposal designed by FINRA to address misconduct by rogue brokers and rogue firms – or as FINRA expressly phrased it, “to address the risks that can be posed to investors and the broader market by individual brokers and member firms that have a history of misconduct” – and focus instead on another issue, i.e., the one component of that proposal that impacts PIABA members’ pocketbooks. That is, rather than acknowledging that the proposal’s primary goal is to eliminate (or at least deter) misconduct, PIABA has chosen instead to complain that perhaps the most ridiculous aspect of the rule proposal – the creation of a fund, sourced by the BD itself, with money that would not constitute an allowable asset in the firm’s net capital computation, and which cannot be used for any purpose other than the satisfaction of a customer claim – somehow doesn’t go far enough to ensure that arbitration claimants – and their lawyers, of course – get paid.
Continue Reading Make No Mistake, PIABA Cares About One Thing: Getting Paid