This week, Charles Schwab consented to pay the SEC a $2.8 million civil penalty for failing to file SARs on certain transactions – suspicious transactions, namely – by a number of independent investment advisors that Schwab had terminated from its platform. This matter is noteworthy not just for the size of the civil penalty, but
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PIABA’s Efforts To Get A Law Passed To Ensure Payment Of Legal Fees Off To Rough Start
By UB Greensfelder on
About a month ago, I posted a blog about the apparent success that PIABA had achieved in getting two US senators — a Democrat and a Republican — to sponsor a bill to require FINRA to create a fund from which unpaid arbitration awards — and, of course, unpaid claimants’ counsel fees — would be…
PIABA Lawyers Convince Congress Of The Importance Of Them Collecting Their Attorneys’ Fees
By UB Greensfelder on
I have written before of the ferocious effort by PIABA lawyers to fight for their ability to collect attorneys’ fees on contingency matters – FINRA arbitrations – that they manage to win but which never get satisfied because the respondent broker-dealer has the temerity to go out of business rather than paying the award. PIABA…
The Demise Of FINRA’s District Committees…And Self Regulation, Too?
By UB Greensfelder on
Posted in District Committees, FINRA
Many people, myself included, are of the view that FINRA today remains a self-regulatory organization in name only. For years now, FINRA has taken a series of actions decried by its member firms – new rules, new interpretations of old rules, zealous enforcement of rules, the imposition of punitive sanctions – who correctly complain that…
FINRA Knows Best – At Least According To FINRA – When It Comes To Hiring Decisions
By UB Greensfelder on
I don’t know how many times I’ve written about FINRA’s efforts over the years to address “rogue brokers,” or what it refers to nowadays more politically correctly as “high-risk brokers.” It doesn’t really matter what blog post you read, or when I wrote it, as they all tell essentially the same story: FINRA is just…
Reverse-Churning: BDs Are Damned If They Do, And Damned If They Don’t
By UB Greensfelder on
A couple of years ago, I blogged about the concept of “reverse churning,” i.e., putting a customer who trades only infrequently into a fee-based account, thus costing the customer a lot more than it would have cost that customer to be in a commission-based account. The reason this became a topic was, at the time,…
Do FINRA’s Proposed MAP Rules Put PIABA’s Concern Over Money Ahead Of Fairness To Members?
By UB Greensfelder on
I have often used this forum to complain about FINRA’s lack of backbone when it comes to dealing with PIABA, the group of lawyers who represent customers of broker-dealers, principally in arbitrations. Over the years, FINRA has amended its rules time and again in response to loud claims by PIABA that the arbitration process is…
Expungement: Already An “Extraordinary Measure,” FINRA Now Seeks To Make It Even Less Accessible
By UB Greensfelder on
Expungement is a funny thing, and here’s why: for years, claimants’ counsel have complained loudly to FINRA that expungement was being granted too frequently, that legitimate customer complaints were disappearing from CRD, resulting in an unfair, sanitized representation of brokers’ records that put unsuspecting customers at risk. As Andrew Stoltmann, PIABA’s president, put it so…
A Sordid Story From The Trenches Of FINRA Arbitration
By UB Greensfelder on
Posted in Arbitration, FINRA
I have used this forum before on occasion to complain about the vagaries of the FINRA arbitration process, and, in particular, the perspective of a respondent’s counsel that the game often seems to be rigged in favor of claimants. Let me give you an example that just occurred in the last two days. And let…
FINRA’S 2018 Exam Priorities Reflect Business As Usual
By UB Greensfelder on
I would imagine that the point of FINRA releasing its list of exam priorities each year is to help firms who are actually going to be examined, by providing a glimpse into FINRA’s playbook so they can address, proactively, the issues they know FINRA will focus on. To be forewarned is to be forearmed, right? …