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Finra Weighs Tougher Stance

Wall Street Journal

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, a Wall Street watchdog overseen by the Securities and Exchange Commission, is considering tougher penalties for misconduct after criticism from an SEC official that its sanctions are too lenient. In the five years since the financial crisis, Finra, which is funded by the industry, didn’t discipline any Wall Street executives. […]

The SEC’s new investor advocate takes on tough assignment

Reuters

It seems ironic that a federal agency with a longstanding mandate to protect investors would need a new advocate to do just that. Nonetheless, Rick Fleming, the first head of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s Office of Investor Advocate, is busy setting up shop, staffing a six-person office and setting priorities. The 2010 Dodd-Frank […]

The Pepperdine Model: Learn First-Then Practice

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

On January 8, 2010, FINRA’s Investor Education Foundation awarded Pepperdine University School of Law’s Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution a grant of $250,000 to establish a comprehensive clinical education program in investor advocacy.  In 2010, Robert Uhl was appointed as the first Director and as an adjunct professor at the Pepperdine University School of Law […]

The Time for a Uniform Fiduciary Duty is Now

St. John’s Law Review

Following the Enron and WorldCom scandals in 2001, public outrage over the lack of executive accountability led to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 which required better public disclosure.  Wall Street argued that this new disclosure standard would cause publicly traded companies to join foreign exchanges instead of United States based securities exchanges, and that this […]

In Soured Investments, Brokers Emerge as Culprits and Victims

New York Times

For years, regulators have typically pursued brokerage firms over the failure of investments they sold rather than going after individual stockbrokers, because the target was larger and the possibility of reaching a financial settlement was greater. Now, regulators are shifting their focus in their fight against fraud to encompass brokers. The shift comes even as […]