The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) announced today that it has ordered Los Angeles-based Westpark Capital, Inc. to pay a total of $400,000 for supervisory system failures, and has suspended two officers for failing to supervise brokers in two now-closed Long Island branches who churned customer accounts and engaged in unauthorized and unsuitable trading in multiple accounts. The monetary sanction includes a $100,000 fine and $300,000 in restitution to affected customers.

 FINRA suspended Westpark's former Chief Compliance Officer, William A. Morgan, f...

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 Judges, and not arbitrators, should decide questions relating to the enforceability of a class action waiver in an arbitration clause because such questions present issues of "arbitrability" that are properly decided by courts, an en banc panel of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled.

"An unconscionability challenge to the provisions of an arbitration agreement is a question of arbitrability that is presumptively for the court, not the arbitrator<...

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Washington, DC — The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) announced today that it has fined five broker-dealers a total of $385,000 for the illegal sale of more than 8 billion shares of penny stock on behalf of their customers. Most of thos...

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Judge Aslup for the Northern District of California denied Charles Schwab & Co.’s Motion for Summary Judgment filed in its efforts to escape liability for defrauding investors in connection with the sale of its proprietary YieldPlus Fund.

Schwab touted its YieldPlus Fund as a near cash equivalent or money market fund.

Unbeknownst to investors, on September 15, 2006, Schwab, in an effort to inflate the YieldPlus Fund’s yield and attract new investors, changed the YieldPlus Fund’s "Investment Limitations" to permit the concentration in ...

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GunnAllen Financial Inc., a Florida-based broker dealer, can no longer trade on behalf of customers because it has fallen below mandatory net capital requirements, a company spokeswoman has confirmed.

A closer look at GunnAllen Financial, an independent broker/dealer firm headquartered in Tampa, Florida, reveals some interesting, if not disturbing, details about the company and, specifically, the fact that it appears to have a track record of hiring brokers whose conduct records are wrought with problems.

On Sept. 28, 2009, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SE...

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