February 2, 2012
Thomson Reuters
Suzanne Barlyn and Joseph A. Giannone
The head of Charles Schwab Corp on Thursday said the company will reimburse customers for arbitration fees in cases they file against the brokerage while a California federal court sorts out a legal dispute related to a regulatory action involving the company. “We have a fundamental disagreement” with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, said chief executive Walt Bettinger […]
January 29, 2012
Investment News
Dan Jamieson
After nearly a full year, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority Inc.’s program to let investor plaintiffs exclude industry arbitrators from hearing panels has proved more popular than expected. So popular is the program, in fact, that it could ease concerns about industry bias and help quell calls to end mandatory arbitration. From the start of […]
January 17, 2012
Dow Jones Compliance Watch
Caitlin Nish
One of Wall Street’s favorite defenses against claims by unhappy investors may be losing steam. The often-used argument that the claimant was a sophisticated investor, and thus should have understood the risks of an investment that went bad, was weakened in the 2008 financial crisis, according to experts in securities law. A lot of wealthy […]
January 15, 2012
New York Times
Gretchen Morgenson
BACK in 1940, a popular book about Wall Street asked, “Where are the customers’ yachts?” Investment firms, it lamented, always seemed to win, even when their customers lost. True then and, all too often, true now – with rare exceptions. One of them was the case of Gerald D. Hosier and Jerry Murdock Jr., who […]
December 22, 2011
Reuters
Suzanne Barlyn and Joseph A. Giannone
*Federal Judge Finds That FINRA panel is Correct *Investors’ losses were tied to risky municipal bond funds *FINRA panel ruling among largest to individual investors A U.S. judge on Wednesday denied a request by Citigroup to overturn a $54.1-million arbitration ruling in favor of a group of investors for losses incurred in a series of […]