Industry Topics

How can I get a customer complaint or customer arbitration removed from my CRD/BrokerCheck?

June 8, 2018 | Malecki Law Team

Brokers can end up with unwarranted customer complaints, arbitrations, terminations, and other adverse disclosures on their CRD for reasons beyond their control. While plenty of investors have a legitimate “beef” against their investment professional, some people vet illegitimate or unwarranted frustrations by filing complaints to a broker’s employer or FINRA and it can stay with a broker and hurt his career forever. Sometimes, the brokerage firm, the market or other external forces are actually at fault for the customers’ losses, not the broker. Some customer complaints could be emotional or financially driven rather than rational. Similarly, firms sometimes have “ulterior motives” in terminating and reporting a termination of an investment professional, which could be false and lead to a FINRA 8210 inquiry, investigation or disciplinary hearing, as well as hurt future employment potential forever.

The CRD, short for Central Registration Depository, is the online registration and licensing system FINRA uses as their database for broker records. Potential customers, regulators, and employers have access to most of the CRD’s information through FINRA’s publicly available online resource, BrokerCheck. Customer disclosures permanently show on the CRD irrespective of a broker’s actual culpability for the alleged misconduct. It can negatively change a broker’s career forever.

Frivolous marks on a Form U5 can damage the stellar reputation any well-intentioned brokers craft after years of successful securities industry experience. Fortunately, in the appropriate circumstances, brokers can have marks removed from the CRD in FINRA arbitration or court proceedings. The experienced expungement attorneys at Malecki Law can help brokers pursue removal of negative customers disclosures FINRA arbitration proceedings. It is more difficult, expensive, and time-consuming for investment professionals to pursue expungement requests in courts with FINRA as an adverse party, but an investment professional can file in court as well.

My Money Was Stolen Out of My Brokerage Account, What Can I Do? Malecki Law Files Claim Regarding Identity Theft Fraud in Brokerage Account

May 31, 2018 | Malecki Law Team

Can’t imagine having a retirement brokerage account drained in a case of preventable identity theft? Such an unimaginable misfortune is a devastating reality for an investor alleging in a FINRA arbitration complaint that he had the entirety of his account at Invesco stolen, without any help or recompense from the brokerage firm. An unidentified perpetrator used this unsuspecting investor’s private identifying information to access and steal money from a 401k retirement account. Malecki Law securities fraud attorneys recently filed a claim against Invesco Distributors Inc, on behalf of this investor alleging their failure to safeguard their client’s assets pursuant to FINRA Rules, SEC Regulations, and securities laws.

This foreseeable fraud initiated when, just around the busy Christmas holiday season, an unidentified individual accessed our client’s Invesco retirement 401k. The perpetrator changed the email address and phone number, which had previously been on file for ten years. Within days, the perpetrator stole funds totaling over $100,000 from the investor’s Invesco 401k brokerage account. The perpetrator also successfully took a loan against the 401k account and transferred money to a bank account not owned by our client. Furthermore, Invesco transferred $25,000 to the IRS as a penalty for borrowing against the 401(k) accounts. Amazingly, the investor learned of these unauthorized account transactions only from checking Invesco’s account portal.

Invesco Distributors, Inc. is an indirect wholly owned subsidiary of Invesco Ltd, according to their official website. Invesco Ltd. announced in a recent press release that their firm manages an estimated $972.8 billion in client assets. Based in Texas, Invesco Distributors Inc., is their U.S distributor of mutual funds, exchange-traded funds, institutional money market funds and other retail products. As a FINRA registered broker-dealer, Invesco Distributors Inc. is expected to comply with required industry practices, statutes, rules, and regulations. FINRA rules, SEC regulations and securities laws exist to encourage brokerage firms to protect their investor’s information.

Malecki Law Investigating Possible Ponzi Scheme and/or Misappropriation of Funds by Financial Adviser Hector May

March 30, 2018 | Malecki Law Team

Malecki Law is currently investigating allegations against Securities America, Inc. and its terminated financial adviser, Hector Anthony May. Mr. May was employed almost twenty years with Securities America at its New City, New York office, and was terminated in March of 2018 in relation to an ongoing criminal investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice. The investigation relates to an alleged Ponzi scheme and/or misappropriation of funds involving many investors and potentially many millions of dollars in losses. If you have suffered investment losses with Securities America and/or had your retirement savings invested with Hector May through his own financial planning firm, Executive Compensation Planners, Malecki Law is interested in hearing from you.

In a Ponzi scheme involving Robert Van Zandt, Malecki Law successfully recovered over $7.4 million in investment losses through the firm’s representation of 120 victims from the Bronx, New York, who fell victim to Mr. Van Zandt’s $35 million Ponzi scheme. Malecki Law’s successful representation was featured in the media, including CBS New York’s Eye Witness News. Malecki Law has experienced attorneys who specialize in recovering investment losses for victims of financial fraud.

My Brokerage Firm Put Me on Administrative Leave; Am I Going to be Fired? What do I do?

January 5, 2018 | Malecki Law Team

When you are placed on administrative leave, it can seem like the world is collapsing around you. It might be, but how you respond and hiring counsel could change the outcome. Before making any rash decisions, it is important to understand just what has happened, what is likely to happen next, and what you should do about it.

What is “Administrative Leave”?

Administrative Leave is a form of suspension from the workplace, often pending the outcome of some form of investigation. In the securities world, this can be the case if there is an investigation into a suspected compliance infraction, a customer complaint, a regulatory or self-regulatory investigation or inquiry, an arrest, charge, indictment, or complaint made against a broker or its firm (a FINRA “Member” firm). Each firm may have its own policies and procedures for how to determine whether administrative leave is necessary, what specifically constitutes administrative leave, or at what point it is imposed.

Huge Win for Investors and Malecki Law Against Morgan Stanley

November 2, 2017 | Jenice L. Malecki, Esq.

Yesterday, a Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) arbitration panel in Boca Raton, Florida awarded Malecki Law attorneys $397,823.00 for principal investment losses against Morgan Stanley & Co., LLC. Malecki Law brought the case on behalf of an elderly and retired couple with conservative investment objectives on claims that Morgan Stanley failed to supervise their accounts and unsuitably over-concentrated their portfolio in risky oil and gas master limited partnerships (MLPs). In addition to the compensatory damages, the panel also ordered Morgan Stanley to pay the claimants in this case 9% in interest, $15,000.00 in costs, attorneys’ fees, $11,812.50 in forum fees, and a $20,000.00 penalty for the firm’s late production of relevant documents at and just prior to hearing.

Malecki Law regularly brings claims on behalf of investors against unscrupulous conduct by brokers and brokerage firms, and holds them accountable for mismanaging investor retirement accounts. Elderly investors such as these find themselves especially at risk from poor investment recommendations made by brokers and securities firms because senior citizens are typically out of the workforce and have much less time and ability to recoup their losses than younger investors. This is pertinent to yesterday’s win because, in setting the damages figure, the arbitration panel rightfully did not deduct investment income (i.e., dividends), which the claimants earned while they had their accounts open with Morgan Stanley.

This is also a notable win for Malecki Law because the case involved the purchase of MLPs, which is a “hot investment” on Wall Street these days. MLPs offer high yields, but are generally recognized as risky and volatile investments, typically within the oil and energy sector, and are not suitable for most retirement accounts or conservative investors looking to preserve their capital. In May of last year, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued an investor alert on MLPs to warn investors of the significant risks in these products, including unexpected tax consequences, fluctuations in distributions, and concentration exposure in the energy sector with acute sensitivity to shifts in the prices of oil and gas.

Did Seadrill Leave a Hole in Your Investment Portfolio?

September 7, 2017 | Malecki Law Team

It seems like every day there is a new “hot stock” being pushed by financial pundits and brokerage houses alike. Seadrill Limited (ticker symbol, SDRL) was once one of these hot stocks, but it has since fallen from grace, with wide reports that it will be declaring chapter 11 bankruptcy by early next week. SDRL’s stock was known for its generous quarterly dividend, and, to the detriment of retiree investment portfolios, benefited from excessive promotions it received from those within the brokerage and investment industry.

SDRL is an offshore deep-water drilling contractor in the oil and gas sector. It was founded in 2005 by John Fredriksen, a Norwegian-born billionaire, who was well-known for his triumphs in the oil and shipping industry during the 1980s. The company grew quickly by way of aggressive management and acquisitions, and its stock price in September of 2013 surged to its high of over $47 per share. However, SDRL has since spectacularly nosedived, falling by more than 99% in value to its current trading price of $0.23 per share.

As early as February 2012, Mad Money’s Jim Cramer was bullish on SDRL. But so were big name brokerage firms like Morgan Stanley, which issued a research report in November 2013 that confidently touted SDRL as an overweight value stock. In a subsequent research report from March 2014, Wells Fargo Securities named Seadrill’s subsidiary, Seadrill Partners, LLC (ticker symbol, SDLP), its “top Marine MLP Pick” and predicted “solid distribution growth” through 2015. Notably, SDLP’s investment performance took a similar trajectory to its parent SDRL, at one-point trading over $34 per share in August of 2014, but now sitting barely above $3 per share today.

What is There to Gain From Being a Whistleblower?

July 14, 2017 | Malecki Law Team

It takes a lot of courage to report illegal or fraudulent misconduct by one’s own employer. This is because being a whistleblower carries significant risks. Whistleblowers not only risk their current employment, but possible ongoing retaliation that can harm their industry reputation and ability to find work with employers in the future. Reporting wrongdoing can also invite significant emotional hardship and threats to one’s personal safety. So why would anybody want to be a whistleblower?

For most with a moral compass, often doing the right thing is reward enough. But there are an increasing number of laws, which now provide additional incentives – both in terms of anonymity and financial remuneration. Depending on where one lives in the United States, there are various state whistleblower laws that could apply. Federal laws tend to provide the most financial incentive, and in particular, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank), which was signed into law in 2010, as a measure to address the 2008 collapse of the financial services market.

Dodd-Frank was a notable expansion on pre-existing federal whistleblower laws for several reasons. The earlier Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX), which was a measure in its own right to address the failings that led to the 2001 financial crisis, provides civil protections to employees (including officers or subcontractors) of a publicly traded company against any kind of retaliation by the employer. While SOX has led to multi-million-dollar financial verdicts for the whistleblower, Dodd-Frank expanded eligibility of who could become a whistleblower, from employees under SOX, to anybody. Section 78u-6(a)(6) of Dodd-Frank defines a whistleblower as follows:

Can I Sue My Brokerage Firm for Filing a False Form U5?

June 22, 2017 | Malecki Law Team

Can I Sue My Brokerage Firm for Filing a False Form U5?

Financial firms that deal in securities do carry legal liability for filing a Form U5 with false information, and financial advisors can indeed sue their former firms for filing an inaccurate Form U5.

Whenever a brokerage firm terminates the employment of a broker or financial advisor, the firm must file a Form U5 – the Uniform Termination Notice for Securities Industry Registration – with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) within thirty days of termination. The Form U5 is differentiated from the Form U4 – the Uniform Application for Securities Industry Registration or Transfer – which is filed upon a broker’s registration with a firm, whereas the Form U5 is filed upon the broker’s termination. The Form U5 requires a firm to provide accurate answers to various questions, including the reason for a broker’s termination.

Is my Financial Advisor Allowed to Trade in my Account Without my Permission?

June 9, 2017 | Malecki Law Team

The short answer is no.

When a customer opens an investment account with a brokerage firm, he or she is typically given the option to choose between a discretionary or non-discretionary account. A discretionary account gives the assigned broker or financial advisor the latitude, or discretion, to buy or sell securities in the account without the customer’s prior authorization. In non-discretionary accounts, a broker does not have that discretion and must obtain the customer’s permission prior to each transaction.

For reasons that may seem obvious, discretionary accounts are somewhat of a rarity in the brokerage world, in part because they require much more supervisory oversight than non-discretionary accounts. Discretionary accounts are naturally prone to a higher risk for abuse or mismanagement of funds, as there is less customer input and oversight of the trading. Thus it should be no surprise that the securities laws for discretionary accounts are especially geared towards investor protection.

Brokerages Are Making Brokers More Powerful: How Will That Effect The Securities Industry?

April 4, 2017 | Malecki Law Team

As reported in the Wall Street Journal, there has been a recent trend at big brokerages of shifting the power from the headquarters to brokers and branch managers. Apparently big brokerages like Bank Of America, UBS Group, and Merrill Lynch are “unleashing” their brokers and moving power closer to the brokers and their managers, both to keep brokers from leaving their firms and to increase revenues.

These modifications come in the wake of declining revenues and broker exoduses several big brokerages have experienced after the financial crisis. They have also witnessed that brokers who dislike or disagree with their managers and find them unhelpful tend to leave the brokerages more easily. The big brokerages have had to deal with rising regulatory costs and competing with an increasing number of independent advisers. According to research conducted by consulting groups, the registered investment adviser model is more successful as it is a smaller and more tightly integrated groups. Taking a cue from that, the zillion dollar brokerages are making changes aimed at empowering, training and giving their brokers more control over day to day decisions over clients, growth, and resource allocation. Merrill Lynch has plans to restructure the brokerage leadership, emphasize more on productivity and training, and reduce the number of divisions. UBS also made similar changes last year.

There are plans underway to also automate investment advisory and make use of robos to cater to a younger clientele so that the brokers can be freed up to deal with high net worth clients. All in all, this gradual shift is geared towards taking things back to how they were before the financial crisis hit, when the field agents and managers had more autonomy to structure their branches, price and sell services, be less accountable to corporate headquarters, hold more power and sway.