Payment for Order Flow (PFOF) and Gamification: Your Questions Answered
Summer Enforcement Action Review; Raising Money in a Pandemic - Investment Management Roundtable Discussion
Investment Management and Private Funds Roundtable – June 2020
Videocast: Asset management regulation in 2020 videocast series – FinTech initiatives
Videocast: Asset management regulation in 2020 videocast series – Fiduciary investment advice: The patchwork emerges
Videocast: Asset management regulation in 2020 videocast series – SEC enforcement
Videocast: Asset management regulation in 2020 videocast series – Complying with new SEC rules for broker-dealers
Investment Management Roundtable Discussion – Regulatory and Enforcement Update
Regulation Best Interest Videocast Series: Establishing An Investment Platform Post-Regulation BI
Investment Management Update - Focus on Data Privacy and Cybersecurity
On April 30, 2024, FINRA proposed amendments its Maintaining Qualifications Program (“MQP”) to reopen the period in which certain participants can complete their prescribed 2022 and 2023 continuing education (“CE”)...more
In a series of settlements announced this year, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) penalized several broker-dealers for allegedly failing to file...more
FINRA, of course, has lots, and lots, of rules. Heck, it has rules about making rules. The things that RRs can and cannot do per those rules are strictly proscribed, mostly in great detail. Things that ordinary people can...more
Under Financial Industry Regulatory Authority’s (FINRA) rules, whenever broker-dealers, registered investment advisers, or issuers of securities (FINRA member) terminate the employment of a FINRA-registered representative,...more
UPDATE: As of December 30, 2020, Arizona, Arkansas, Michigan, and Rhode Island have joined Iowa in adopting the NAIC model rule for best interest standard in annuity sales. Alabama, Delaware, Kentucky, Maine, Nevada and Ohio...more
I dare you. In fact, I double-dog dare you to figure out how or why FINRA decides to charge willfulness in some cases but not in others. Bottom line is that it is nearly impossible (except if you’re a big firm, in which case...more
At the October 7, 2020 open meeting of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Chairman Jay Clayton announced that the Staff of the Commission proposed to grant exemptive relief, permitting natural persons to engage in...more
FINRA’s National Adjudicatory Counsel (“NAC”), recently, affirmed a disciplinary panel decision significantly sanctioning a broker-dealer for paying unregistered persons and entities. FINRA alleged, among other things,...more
While much of the broker-dealer world has been trying to figure out how to protect the financial welfare of their customers, in addition to watching Netflix and searching in vain for Lysol wipes online, our trusty securities...more
UPDATED: MAY 12, 2020: Yesterday, Iowa adopted its proposed regulation requiring annuity agents to act in the best interest of consumers, but delayed adoption (or revision, withdrawal) of the companion securities rules. The...more
On March 5 at 2 p.m. (ET), Ulmer attorney Christopher D. Seps will host a live webinar to discuss the FINRA expungement process from beginning to end, including: - Procedural steps governing the FINRA expungement process ...more
Here is how PIABA’s one-track mind operates: in a Report it just issued, PIABA laments the frequency with which registered reps are able to get customer complaints expunged from their records. The sole reason for this, PIABA...more
In the past week, I ran across two discrete instances in which FINRA acts as a secret gatekeeper of sorts, exercising its own subjective judgment, without anyone knowing what, exactly, it is doing or why, employing...more
I have written a few times about FINRA’s ceaseless interest in bringing cases against registered reps who fail to update their Form U-4 in a timely manner to disclose the fact that a tax lien has been filed against them. Or...more
FINRA came out with a slightly weird Regulatory Notice last week. In a succinct document, barely over two pages, FINRA addressed something that may, or may not, actually be of concern to anyone. In short, Regulatory Notice...more
I have been busy the last month getting ready for a big arbitration, and attending the first week of what looks like is going to be a four- or five-week slog when all is said and done. So, I am just catching up on some recent...more
As recognized by new guidance from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), the departure of a registered representative often prompts customer questions about the departing representative and the continued...more
Last week FINRA issued guidance (Regulatory Notice 19-10) with respect to communications with customers about registered representatives (“RRs”) who have left a broker-dealer (the “Notice”). With increased frequency, RRs...more
I told you two weeks ago in my blog post that this would happen. I told you that when Robert Cook announced the topics to be taken up at the February/March FINRA Board meeting in Boca Raton, he slipped and used the new phrase...more
On January 28, 2019, FINRA announced a novel leniency initiative that will offer no-fine enforcement resolutions for member firms that self-report supervisory deficiencies related to recommendations of 529 savings plans and...more
It is not a wise career move for a registered rep to leave his broker-dealer – thereby abandoning his customers, and affording competitors the opportunity to make his customers their own – and then to begin the long,...more
FINRA currently requires registered representatives to inform their broker-dealer of any proposed outside business activities that they may be engaging in so that the firms can determine whether to permit the representative...more
Lost in the commotion surrounding the Department of Labor's new fiduciary rule was the Securities and Exchange Commission's approval of FINRA's recruitment bonus disclosure rule, which requires action by broker dealers when...more
Breaking up is hard to do. In the investment industry, it can be even harder because one half of the couple needs to publish the reasons for the break-up. When a registered representative separates from a broker-dealer...more
FINRA recently settled an action against a registered representative of a broker-dealer for alleged violations regarding the safeguarding and use of private consumer data. The broker accepted and consented to the settlement...more