The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority says that it is fining Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith, Inc. $2.8M in the wake of certain alleged supervisory failures that the SRO says led to the financial firm billing clients unwarranted fees. The financial firm paid back the $32M in remediation to affected…
Broker Bruce Parish Hutson has turned in a Letter of Acceptance, Waver, and Consent to settle allegations of Financial Industry Regulatory Authority rule violations involving his alleged failure to advise Morgan Stanley Smith Barney (MS) of his arrest for retail theft at a store in Wisconsin. FINRA has accepted the…
At the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority’s yearly conference, the SRO’s CEO, Richard Ketchum, talked about how investment advisers and brokers that sell complex instruments to retail clients should be able to write on a “single page” the reasons why the product is in the best interest of that investor. Ketchum…
A Financial Industry Regulatory Authority arbitration panel has ordered Advanced Equities, CEO Dwight Badger, and Chairman Keith Daubenspeck to pay one of their former brokers $4.5 million in compensatory damages. The ex-broker, John Galinsky, had accused all three of them of not paying certain commissions on his work to raise…
The Securities and Exchange Commission has approved a one-year pilot for a plan meant to shield equity markets from volatile price changes. The plan is based on two initiatives from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority and the national securities exchanges. One initiative involves a “limit up-limit down” proposal that would…
According to a senior FINRA enforcement official, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority appears on schedule this year to bring about 1,500 enforcement actions-that’s about the same amount a last year, when this was then considered a record number. He said that the actions tend to be “isolated cases,” with dishonesty…
Citigroup Global Markets Inc. (CLQ) has consented to pay the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority a $3.5M fine to settle allegations that he gave out inaccurate information about subprime residential mortgage-backed securities. The SRO is also accusing the financial firm of supervisory failures and inadequate maintenance of records and books. Per…
Financial Industry Regulatory Authority Inc. arbitrator Alvin Green is ordering David Lerner Associates Inc. to pay claimants Florence Hechtel and Joseph Graziose $24,450 for the Apple REITs that they bought from the firm. They will get the money after returning the Apple REIT 9 shares to the company. The Apple…
A federal judge has thrown out a lawsuit filed by Charles Schwab Corp. (SCHW) against the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority Inc. The financial firm had sought to stop the SRO’s enforcement case against it over an allegedly illegal arbitration agreement. Schwab had added a new provision to over 6.8 million…
UBS Financial Services Inc. of Puerto Rico (UBS) has agreed to pay $26.6 million to settle the Securities and Exchange Commission administrative action accusing the financial firm of misleading investors about its control and liquidity over the secondary market for nearly two dozen proprietary closed-end mutual funds. By settling, UBS…