South Florida Arbitration & Litigation Lawyer Blog
FINRA Arbitration Lawyer, Russell L. Forkey, Esq.
June, 2011:
NFP Securities, Inc. (CRD #42046, Austin, Texas) submitted a Letter of Acceptance, Waiver and Consent in which the firm was censured and fined $50,000. Without admitting or denying the findings, the firm consented to the described sanctions and to the entry of findings that it approved advertising materials a registered representative used in his retail equity-indexed annuity (EIA) business conducted at workshops for senior citizens that contained false, exaggerated, unwarranted or misleading statements. The findings stated that the firm failed to document, with a principal’s signature or initial, its approval of a piece of advertising material the representative used and failed to maintain a record of its approval of a piece of the representative’s advertising material. The findings also stated that the firm did not supervise the representative’s workshops, in that it did not require him to produce a copy of the script for the workshops and did not attend any of the live workshops to confirm that the contents of the workshops complied with NASD rules and that only firm-approved materials were being used. The findings also included that if the firm had required the representative to submit a script and had attended his workshops, it would have discovered that he made statements, used materials and engaged in conduct that violated NASD Rules 2110 and 2210, and could have prevented further violations of these rules. (FINRA Case #2007011393902).