{"id":1023,"date":"2012-02-24T17:24:15","date_gmt":"2012-02-24T17:24:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.stockbrokerfraudblog.com\/2012\/02\/appeals_court_affirm_sec_findi"},"modified":"2022-03-23T13:44:31","modified_gmt":"2022-03-23T18:44:31","slug":"appeals-court-affirm-sec-findi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/blog\/appeals-court-affirm-sec-findi\/","title":{"rendered":"Appeals Court affirm SEC Finding that Broker Acted \u201cWillfully\u201d When Keeping Tax Liens Information from FINRA"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\tThe U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit says that the Securities and Exchange Commission did not abuse its discretion when it determined that broker Scott Mathis &#8220;willfully&#8221; withheld information from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority about tax liens. Mathis had submitted a petition seeking for the court to review the SEC order. However, the court, denying the request, found that there was &#8220;substantial evidence&#8221; backing up the SEC&#8217;s findings that he did, in fact, hold back information in a willful manner.<\/p>\n<p>Between 1985 and 2002, Mathis was a principal or broker at numerous financial firms. He had submitted three Form U-4 registrations with FINRA. It was after 1996 that the IRS put in five tax liens against him. The federal agency accused him of not paying his personal income taxes over a several-year period. Mathis is accused of not noting the liens in filings with FINRA even though he is purported to have known about them.<\/p>\n<p>According to the court, in 2003 FINRA asked Mathis to explain why he didn&#8217;t reveal the liens. He told the SRO he wasn&#8217;t aware that they existed or that he had an obligation to note them down on his Form U-4. FINRA then began proceedings against the broker, ultimately holding that he acted &#8220;willfully&#8221; in failing to report the tax liens. He was suspended for three months and fined $10,000.<\/p>\n<div class=\"read_more_link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/blog\/appeals-court-affirm-sec-findi\/\"  title=\"Continue Reading Appeals Court affirm SEC Finding that Broker Acted \u201cWillfully\u201d When Keeping Tax Liens Information from FINRA\" class=\"more-link\">Continue Reading \u203a<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit says that the Securities and Exchange Commission did not abuse its discretion when it determined that broker Scott Mathis &#8220;willfully&#8221; withheld information from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority about tax liens. Mathis had submitted a petition seeking for the court to review the SEC order. However, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3739,3741],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-finra","category-securities-fraud"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Appeals Court affirm SEC Finding that Broker Acted \u201cWillfully\u201d When Keeping Tax Liens Information from FINRA &#8212; Investor Lawyers Blog &#8212; February 24, 2012<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The SEC did not abuse its discretion when it determined that a broker &quot;willfully&quot; withheld information from the FINRA about tax liens, it has been ruled.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/blog\/appeals-court-affirm-sec-findi\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Appeals Court affirm SEC Finding that Broker Acted \u201cWillfully\u201d When Keeping Tax Liens Information from FINRA &#8212; Investor Lawyers Blog &#8212; February 24, 2012\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"The SEC did not abuse its discretion when it determined that a broker &quot;willfully&quot; withheld information from the FINRA about tax liens, it has been ruled.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Shepherd Smith Edwards &amp; Kantas, LLP\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Appeals Court affirm SEC Finding that Broker Acted \u201cWillfully\u201d When Keeping Tax Liens Information from FINRA &#8212; Investor Lawyers Blog &#8212; February 24, 2012","description":"The SEC did not abuse its discretion when it determined that a broker \"willfully\" withheld information from the FINRA about tax liens, it has been ruled.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/blog\/appeals-court-affirm-sec-findi\/","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_title":"Appeals Court affirm SEC Finding that Broker Acted \u201cWillfully\u201d When Keeping Tax Liens Information from FINRA &#8212; 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