On Dealbreaker last week, Bess Levin hilariously reported former baseball player Lenny Dykstra’s release from a California prison after his guilty plea and sentencing for three felony counts – bankruptcy fraud, concealment of assets, and money laundering. As Levin noted, with his new free time, Dykstra might be available to weigh in on your investment… Continue Reading
Category Archives: FINRA
Subscribe to FINRA RSS FeedThe SEC Does Not Care about Your FINRA Document Request
Posted in Broker-Dealers, FINRAIf you are a broker-dealer or a registered representative at one, you sign on for some meddling by FINRA. The self-regulatory organization is responsible for overseeing your securities business and even for your outside business activities. So if FINRA asks you for documents related to those activities, you pretty much have to turn them over. … Continue Reading
Stories Worth Reading This Morning
Posted in Broker-Dealers, FCPA, FINRAAmong the stories you should consider reading today: FINRA’s Susan Axelrod announced at a PLI panel on Wednesday that FINRA is reviewing conflicts of interest at 14 broker-dealers. The review seems to be geared toward being sure that registered representatives keep their focus on suitability of the products sold to their customers. This article suggests… Continue Reading
NASAA Identifies Top Broker-Dealer Compliance Violations and Best Practices
Posted in Broker-Dealers, FINRAOn Sunday, the North American Securities Administrators Association released its list of broker-dealer compliance violations and best practices to avoid those violations. The list is based on a compilation of 236 examinations by state securities examiners from 24 jurisdictions around the United States. The exams were conducted in the first half of 2012 under the… Continue Reading
FINRA Reminds World about Global Research Settlement
Posted in Broker-Dealers, FINRARemember the Global Research Settlement? It has been somewhat in the news recently. You might recall that it involved ten huge banks and the, uh, symbiotic relationship between those banks’ research and investment banking arms. The pattern that had developed worked like this: equity analysts published favorable coverage of a publicly traded company’s stock, and… Continue Reading
FINRA Expels Biremis Corp. for Anti-Money Laundering Abuses
Posted in Broker-Dealers, FINRA, Non-scienter-based ViolationsOn July 30th, FINRA expelled broker-dealer Biremis Corporation and permanently barred Biremis’s CEO, Peter Beck, from association with any FINRA member firm in any capacity. FINRA found Biremis and Beck liable for a host of violations. FINRA alleged that among other things, Biremis failed to implement an adequate anti-money laundering (“AML”) program, failed to maintain… Continue Reading
3½ Thoughts about the Consolidated Audit Trail
Posted in Broker-Dealers, FINRA, Insider Trading, SEC StructureOn July 11th, the SEC adopted Rule 613, a rule that requires national securities exchanges and FINRA “to jointly submit a comprehensive plan detailing how they would develop, implement, and maintain a consolidated audit trail that must collect and accurately identify every order, cancellation, modification, and trade execution for all exchange-listed equities and equity options… Continue Reading
FINRA Arbitrations Can Be Traps for the Unwary
Posted in Arbitrations, FINRAAre you considering invoking FINRA’s arbitration process to seek redress for wrongs done by or to a broker-dealer? Be careful, because you might be biting off a bit more than you can chew. Two recent cases – one a FINRA arbitration award, the other a Fourth Circuit affirmance of a FINRA arbitration award – tell… Continue Reading