FINRA board approves proposals to crack down on high-risk brokers

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) Board of Governors has put forth a series of proposals related to its ongoing effort to strengthen controls on brokers with a history of significant past misconduct.

FINRA soon plans to issue a regulatory notice seeking comment on the key proposals, which would strengthen protections for investors and range from additional disclosure on BrokerCheck to heightened supervision of brokers appealing disciplinary matters.

“These actions will build on FINRA’s extensive existing programs to address high-risk brokers and reflect our commitment to protect investors and promote public confidence in securities firms and markets,” FINRA President and CEO Robert W. Cook said in a statement. “We are continuing to develop additional proposals in this area that will be brought to the Board in the coming months.”

The current proposals, according to FINRA, would expand sanction guidelines to enable panels to consider more severe sanctions when an individual’s disciplinary history includes additional types of past misconduct. They also would allow hearing panels, in appropriate circumstances, to restrict the activities of firms and individuals while a disciplinary matter is on appeal.

FINRA will also issue a regulatory notice reinforcing and clarifying firms’ existing supervisory obligations concerning any high-risk brokers they may employ. The proposals would specifically require firms to adopt heightened supervisory procedures for brokers while a statutory disqualification request is under FINRA’s review, or the broker is appealing a hearing panel decision.

In addition, they would increase FINRA’s statutory disqualification application fee for individuals and enact a new fee for firms to reflect the additional time it takes FINRA staff to thoroughly screen those applications.

The proposals also include a mandatory disclosure on BrokerCheck if a firm is subject to existing requirements for recording all telephone conversations with customers due to having a specified percentage of registered representatives who were formerly employed by disciplined firms.

Finally, the proposals would revise the guidelines for reviewing requests for a waiver from FINRA exam requirements to more broadly consider the past misconduct of an individual, including arbitration awards and settlements.

The proposals and subsequent actions are designed to enhance FINRA’s existing high-risk broker programs.