We specialize in work on behalf of brokers and securities broker-dealers in disputes before the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA). Our attorneys have 70 years of combined experience representing both broker-dealers and individual brokers in contract and employment disputes. The firm handles public customer cases involving allegations of churning, unsuitability, breach of fiduciary duty and fraud. It also represents individual investors in claims involving serious mishandling of their securities accounts.
In March 2004, in Headwaters Capital v. Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, the firm obtained an NASD award for more than $1.7 million on behalf of a Bay Area arbitrage firm.
In July 2013 the firm obtained a unanimous FINRA award granting expungement of a broker’s Central Registration Depository record — an extraordinary remedy according to FINRA — despite a customer’s allegations that the broker had recommended unsuitable investments. In October 2013 the Superior Court in San Francisco confirmed that award.
In 2019 the firm obtained a unanimous FINRA award in favor of a broker who had been sued on a promissory note. In this unusual award, the panel ordered that the firm pay the broker his unpaid compensation and bonus net of the note, plus attorneys’ fees and interest.