March 5, 2016
Today's analysis of a Financial Industry Regulatory
Authority starts off with a consideration of the shortcomings of a Chief
Compliance Officer. The BrokeAndBroker.com Blog considers
what happens when a brokerage firm purchases an email review system but, oh
well, someone didn't actually do what was required to implement the third-party
product. The article ends with an exaltation of Murphy's Law and a bit of
rambling and musing by our publisher Bill Singer. READ
Oh!!!
Unauthorized Trading, Patti O'Furniture, And FINRA's
BrokerCheck
Once again the gaze of the BrokeAndBroker.com
Blog falls upon a Financial Industry Regulatory Authority settlement
involving a stockbroker who got a verbal go-ahead from some customers to
exercise trading discretion. Unfortunately, as we have written with some
regularity, oral discretion is often worth the paper it's not written on.
Oh, and another thing, FINRA
seems to have lost today's featured Respondent in their high-priced,
highly-touted BrokerCheck
database. Oh my! But, don't fret, oh no,
BrokeAndBroker.com's publisher Bill Singer has solved the
puzzle. Oh, say can you see? Okay, Bill did. OMG, it was quite a hunt to figure
out what was wrong In the end, it came down to an "O" and an
apostrophe. You may enjoy reading about Bill's hunt and chase, which lasted
into the wee hours of the evening. Oh, what a night! READ
What we know about today's
BrokeAndBroker.com Blogregulatory case comes from a
published, public document that appears on the website of the Securities and
Exchange Commission ("SEC"), one of Wall Street's regulators. The odd
thing about the securities industry's cops (federal, state, and
self-regulatory) is that they have this penchant for not always naming names.
Read enough published regulatory records and you are bound to come across
references to Informant Xor Jane Doe or
an unnamed entity referred to as the Broker Dealer or the Hedge
Fund. Some say that this hide-and-seek approach to disclosure
encourages tipsters and informants to come forward knowing that their
identities will be hidden. In those cases, that's a sensible and appropriate
policy. In other cases, however, queries as to why names aren't named elicits
the standard rebuff of: It protects the
innocent.
Those charged with writing the
lexicon of regulation have a very generous nature when it comes to the term "innocent."
One would think -- would hope -- that when there is tension between serving the
interests of public investors versus those of, say, the securities industry or
participants in the overall financial marketplace, that deference would be
given to the needs of public investors. The troubling thing about that hope is
we keep seeing evidence that the scales are not always balanced. Someone's fat
thumb seems to find its way into the weighing. Consider today's case. READ LPL
Loses Dramatic Employee Defamation
Case
Today's BrokeAndBroker.com
Blog features a peculiar case, or, perhaps, it would be better to
characterize the circumstances as involving one registered representative and
two cases. In the left ring of the Wall Street Circus, we have a FINRA
arbitration. In the right ring, we have a FINRA regulatory settlement. In the
center ring, we, have a FINRA BrokerCheck record. The
problem is that the wild beasts and acrobats are not acting with the greatest
of ease and we, the audience, are overwhelmed and confused. READ
