FINRA Lawyer Blog

Last month, Deutsche Bank Securities Inc., Citigroup Global Markets Inc., JP Morgan Securities LLC and Interactive Brokers LLC agreed to pay a collective $4.8 million to end FINRA´s probe over inadequate risk controls. According to FINRA´s allegations, the financial institutions violated the Market Access Rule, which establishes requirements for maintaining risk management controls that supervise…

FINRA’s enforcement program is big business. In 2008, FINRA levied fines totaling $28 million. By 2016, that number jumped to $176 million. In 2008, FINRA ordered restitution payments to investors totaling $6 million. By 2015, that number jumped to $96 million. Each year, FINRA initiates approximately 1,500 disciplinary actions against member firms and employees. FINRA’s…

Regulatory compliance is often less costly than FINRA’s steep fines. Yet companies continue to face millions of dollars in penalties for not complying with FINRA’s regulations. In this particular time, there is a clear intent from FINRA to hold such companies accountable. Unfortunately, many of them have learned this the hard way. FINRA has just…

At a recent event hosted by the American Bar Association’s Securities Litigation Committee, three Chief Counsel from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority’s Enforcement division discussed the agency’s current priorities. Chief Counsel Sue Light, Gina Petrocelli, and Lara Thyagarajan shed light on the areas that FINRA will be scrutinizing more closely through the second half of…

In its quest for investor protection and market integrity, FINRA diligently seeks out firm representatives who are in violation of its strict rules. Recently, the regulatory authority decided to bar California-based Jim Jinkook Seol from the industry. A former employee of Ameriprise Financial Inc.; Seol was found to have sold $100 million worth of EB-5,…

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission appears to be increasing its scrutiny of broker-dealers who fail to comply with the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) reporting requirements. Traditionally this type of violations remained off the SEC’s radar, being usually pursued by the DOJ, FinCEN, the IRS, and other federal agencies. After SEC’s…

With the increase in FINRA enforcement activity in the last year, we hear daily from concerned RAs and other financial industry professionals – this post is intended to decode the basics of the process and offer some cautions to avoid pitfalls awaiting the unwary. 1. How can you become a target of a FINRA investigation?…

FINRA’s Department of Enforcement recently made public a Letter of Acceptance, Waiver and Consent (AWC) by which former LPL broker Mark Tyler Bonds agreed to a one month suspension and a $5,000 fine to resolve allegations that he borrowed money from a customer of his firm, in violation of FINRA rule 3240. In the AWC,…

Barclays Capital has reached a $97 million settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission to resolve allegations that its Wealth and Investment Management Americas (WIMA) unit overcharged clients by $50 million between 2010 and 2015. The SEC’s investigation determined that Barclays Capital, which sold its WIMA unit in 2015, incurred violations of multiple sections of…

Purshe Kaplan Sterling Investments (PKS) of Albany, New York, recently agreed to pay $3.4 million to a Native American tribe to resolve allegations that one of its brokers, Gopi Krishna Vungarala, took millions of dollars in undisclosed commissions on the tribe’s investments. Vungarala was not only a financial advisor to the tribe; he was also…