New York Securities Fraud Lawyers Blog
The securities fraud attorneys at Malecki Law are interested in hearing from investors who have complaints against stockbroker Matthew Meehan. Mr. Meehan was last employed and registered with E.J. Sterling, LLC, a Garden City, New York, broker-dealer, from November 2011 to October 2015, according to his publicly available BrokerCheck, as maintained by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA). He was previously registered with Aegis Capital Corp. from March 2010 to November 2011 and with Gunnallen Financial, Inc. from September 2008 to March 2010, according to BrokerCheck records.
In 2017, Mr. Meehan was fined and suspended from association with any FINRA member broker-dealer for 12 months by FINRA, after submitting a Letter of Acceptance, Waiver and Consent No. 2016050114901 . According to the AWC, Mr. Meehan violated FINRA Rule 2111 (Suitability) and FINRA Rule 2010 (Standards of Commercial Honor and Principles of Trade) because from January 2014 through June 2015, he exercised discretion without the customers’ written authorization to do so, and engaged in unsuitable trading in several customers’ accounts “resulting in annualized turnover rates of 12, 21, and 32, respectively, and annualized cost-to-equity ratios of 54%, 110%, and 179%, respectively.” Trading at these levels of turnover and cost-to-equity ratios could be considered churning, which is defined as excessive trading by the broker in the client’s account to generate commissions.
FINRA Rules require that recommendations made by the broker to the customer be suitable. This means that the broker must consider the investor’s age, investment experience, age, tax status, other investments, as well as other factors when making a recommendation to buy or sell securities.