FINRA Expungement Proceedings
SYK attorney Darlene Pasieczny Presents on FINRA Expungement Proceedings at PIABA’s Mid-Year Meeting.
On April 4, 2019, I joined co-panelist Kate McGrail and moderator Robert J. Girard II in Washington D.C. Together, we presented on FINRA expungement proceedings to an audience of securities attorneys, law professors, and state securities regulators attending PIABA’s Mid-Year Meeting.
Our main topics included:
- The process for brokers to request expungement of customer dispute information from a broker’s CRD record.
- The process for customer claimants to object to the request.
- Proposed rule changes being considered by FINRA.
Current FINRA Rule 2080 of the Code of Arbitration Procedure for Customer Disputes provides the narrow grounds for expungement requests. FINRA Regulatory Notice 17-42 describes the potential changes including:
- Limiting the time in which brokers may request expungement.
- Creation of an Expungement Arbitrator Roster, with enhanced arbitrator qualification requirements, to hear expungement requests.
- Requiring an additional finding that the customer dispute information has no investor protection or regulatory value.
The CRD is the Central Registration Depository, an online licensing and registration system for brokers and securities firms. Pursuant to FINRA rules, certain disclosure information must be reported for inclusion in the CRD record. This includes customer disputes – customer complaints, arbitrations and court actions.
Expungement of customer dispute information from a broker’s CRD record also means that the information is no longer publicly available through FINRA’s free online BrokerCheck. Because FINRA is clear that expungement is an “extraordinary remedy.”
That is in part because BrokerCheck is considered a major tool for investors to research the background of a financial professional. Wouldn’t you want to know if the person you are going to trust with your savings has a record of multiple customer complaints? Brokerage firms and state and federal securities regulatory agencies also use the CRD record when making hiring and licensing decisions, as well as in enforcement actions.