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In today's blog, we got a tasty bit of litigation involving a popular brokerage firm that got stiffed by one of its customers. How the jaw-droppin' $2 million debit arose is set out in the arbitration award's fact pattern. As to why that huge debit was not covered by margin maintenance or risk management is not explained. A lot of painful lessons all around -- and some unanswered questions.
Something does not seem right here. There is a gap between when FINRA knew or should have known of compliance deficiencies at one of its member firms and when FINRA settled its charges via an August 2022 AWC. Was FINRA's investigation influenced by its awareness that an executive from that firm sat on its Board of Governors? We don't know. We should. Ultimately, that's the most troubling issue: FINRA's lack of TRANSPARENCY.