An irreverent Wall Street Blog
BrokeAndBroker.com Blog by Bill Singer WEEK IN REVIEW
February 27, 2016
Sometimes a regulatory matter is stunning not for the seriousness of the misconduct or the dollars at issue but, more simply, because of the sheer number of violations addressed. In a recent Financial Industry Regulatory Authority settlement with a registered representative, we have just such a case. It's as if the stockbroker was a newly launched pinball that managed to hit virtually every bumper and every bonus-point device and, as it fell to the bottom of the field, you perfectly timed the flipper to send it all the way back up to the top, where all the bells rang and the lights flashed again. READ
Sometimes a regulatory matter is stunning not for the seriousness of the misconduct or the dollars at issue but, more simply, because of the sheer number of violations addressed. In a recent Financial Industry Regulatory Authority settlement with a registered representative, we have just such a case. It's as if the stockbroker was a newly launched pinball that managed to hit virtually every bumper and every bonus-point device and, as it fell to the bottom of the field, you perfectly timed the flipper to send it all the way back up to the top, where all the bells rang and the lights flashed again. READ
UPDATE: READ FULL-TEXT Apple Inc Motion To Vacate
On February 25, 2016, Apple filed a MOTION TO VACATE ORDER COMPELLING APPLE INC.TO ASSIST AGENTS IN SEARCH, AND OPPOSITION TO GOVERNMENT'S MOTION TO COMPEL ASSISTANCE
IN THE MATTER OF THE SEARCH OF AN APPLE IPHONE SEIZED DURING THE EXECUTION OF A SEARCH WARRANT ON A BLACK LEXUS IS300, CALIFORNIA LICENSE PLATE 35KGD203 (Apple Motion to Vacate, Central District of California, February 25, 2016). READ the FULL-TEXT Apple Motion to Vacate
A guy walks into an emergency room bleeding from a gunshot wound. He takes off his bloodied street clothes and puts on a hospital gown. The hospital puts his clothes in a see-through plastic bag. What does any of that have to do with the looming constitutional challenge by Apple Inc. against demands by the federal government to provide access to a password-protected iPhone? Maybe nothing -- but, then again, perhaps far more than you might think. The Law has an odd way of taking facts and asking "what if?" By the time judges have read the pleadings, read the briefs, conducted trials, and listened to appeals, the facts may become so twisted as to be virtually unrecognizable or irrelevant. Consider this recent New York State criminal case. READ
About twenty years ago, songstress and wannabe Wall Street regulator Anita Baker asked in her hit song "Giving You The Best That I Got": Ain't there something I can give you in exchange for everything you give to me? In a recent regulatory settlement, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority rewrote the verse to Here's what we're gonna give you for everything that you took. Instead of roses and chocolates, one registered representative wound up with a fine and suspension. Oddly, FINRA's love note to the respondent seems to have gotten lost in the mail and took about 2 1/2 years to deliver. Is this the best regulation that Wall Street's self-regulatory organization has got to give? READ
There are those among us who never bother themselves with the grand philosophical, moral, or ethical questions of life and just do whatever the hell they want: right and wrong be damned. And then, there are many of us, who find ourselves bruised and bloodied at the bottom of a chasm into which we fell after we failed inadvertently stepped upon a slippery slope. In today's BrokeAndBroker.com Blog, we consider a Wall Street regulatory settlement in which a stockbroker did something wrong by impersonating three of his customers, but we are perplexed when deciding whether the best regulatory response is to punish the wrongdoer or to preemptively address an ongoing source of trouble. Consider this a thought-piece. READ