Articles Posted in LPL Financial

On November 1, 2018, the Financial Regulatory Authority (“FINRA”) entered into a $2.75 million settlement with LPL Financial for supervisory failures related to the firm’s anti-money laundering (“AML”) program and customer complaint reporting practices.  Most disturbing for financial consumers is LPL’s failure to disclose and report customer complaints.  Customer complaints must be reported to FINRA within 30 days of a qualifying event.

Although LPL entered into the settlement without having to admit or deny any of FINRA’s findings, FINRA’s factual findings reflect badly on LPL’s supervisory practices which have already been the subject of numerous fines and regulatory inquiries.  LPL recently settled a multi-state action agreeing to pay a fine of $499,000 to each participating jurisdiction that could ultimately reach $26,000,000.

Accurate tracking and reporting of customer complaints is critical to the supervision and monitoring of stockbrokers.  According to FINRA, LPL avoided reporting customer complaints by narrowly interpreting the disclosure rules.  As a result, customer complaints that should have been reported were not.  This disciplinary information is also valuable to financial consumers and is publicly available through FINRA’s BrokerCheck system.  BrokerCheck provides useful information that all financial consumers should use when evaluating and selecting a stockbroker or investment advisor.

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The Alcala Law Firm has filed a FINRA arbitration claim against LPL Financial LLC arising out of the actions of their registered representative/investment advisor Jane Everingham doing business as Everignham O’Malley in Larkspur, California. The claim, filed on behalf of a customer of Ms. Everingham, involves the following highly risky and speculative investments:

• Proshares Trust Short 20+ Year Treasury [Symbol: TBF]. An Exchange Traded Fund (“ETF”) that seeks to achieve the inverse of the daily performance of the Barclays U.S. 20+ Year Treasury Bond Index. Because these ETFs are reset daily, this type of ETF is unsuitable for investors who plan to hold the fund for longer than one trading session due to the effects of compounding.
• Federated Equity Funds Prudent Bear Fund [Symbol: BEARX]. A mutual fund that seeks capital appreciation primarily through short positions on domestic stocks. “Selling short” generally refers to the act of selling borrowed shares with the hope that the shares can be bought back at a lower price.

On May 6, 2015, LPL Financial reached a settlement with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (“FINRA”) agreeing to pay FINRA a $10 million fine and make restitution payments totaling $1.7 million to a select group of customers who were sold leveraged and inverse exchange traded funds (“ETFs”).

Restitution Will be Limited to 327 Customer Accounts

Only customers who purchased certain ETFs are entitled to receive any restitution under the terms of the settlement with FINRA. A total of 327 customer accounts are covered under the restitution program. Payments will range from a high of $83,034.97 to a low of $1.02 per account. LPL has 120 days to provide regulators with proof that payment has been made.