Securities Arbitration & Litigation
Given the well-settled requirement that most disputes between and among customers and broker-dealers and between and among brokers and their firms be arbitrated before SRO tribunals, our attorneys have significant securities arbitration experience in a range of cases that are encountered by securities broker-dealers and their employees.
We offer equally skilled assistance to broker-dealers and investment advisors facing claims alleging:
- Breach of fiduciary duty
- Fraud
- Improper investment advice
- Unsuitable investments
- Over-concentration of investments
- Negligence
- Negligent supervision
- Failure to supervise
- Unauthorized trading
- Churning
- Wrongful sellout
- Regulation T violations
- Failure to disclose material information
- Front-running
- Improper executions
- Improper hedging strategies
- Other claims typically made by customers in securities arbitrations against brokers, managers, and their firms
Additionally, we have defended brokers and managers in disciplinary actions brought by SROs, and we defend brokers, managers and broker-dealers in claims brought by former employees, including but not limited to, claims for age and sex discrimination, sexual harassment, wrongful termination, retaliation, and disputes over commissions and promissory notes.
In addition to our representation of broker-dealers and their employees in arbitrations, we also represent broker-dealers, brokers, managers, institutions, issuing companies, and other investment professionals in connection with claims arising from securities offerings and the investment of institutional funds in state and federal courts.
Our attorneys are experienced and skilled at defending publicly held corporations, financial institutions, investment advisors, broker-dealers, and their officers, directors, and employees against lawsuits filed under the full array of federal and state securities laws and regulations alleging improper conduct in offerings or, in connection with actions allegedly adversely affecting a company’s stock price or asset values. Because securities misconduct, or even mistakes - particularly affecting the accuracy of financial reporting or involving the lack of disclosure of certain financially impacting events - can have consequences ranging from company bankruptcy to jail terms for executives alleged to be involved in the securities violations, we place special emphasis on such "bet the company" litigation.
Our lawyers understand the stringent new federal standards typified by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, and know the most effective ways to defend clients against allegations involving corporate compliance, governance, conflicts of interest, and accuracy of financial filings.
Officers and directors of securities firms are frequently targets in securities cases. We have extensive experience working with insurance carriers who write D&O and errors and omissions coverage for such claims. We have extensive experience providing coverage advice in shareholder derivative actions against directors and officers in such cases, particularly in the technology and financial services industries.
Examples of our arbitration and litigation representation include the following:
- Defended a broker and broker-dealer in NASD arbitration against a group of high net worth businessmen and their related companies. Ultimately we expunged the claims from the respondent broker’s CRD record.
- Defended numerous brokers and broker dealers in claims alleging unsuitability, over-concentration, unauthorized trading, misrepresentation, churning, failure to supervise, and breach of fiduciary duty
- Represented the head of OTC trading for a regional securities firm in a breach of contract case against his former firm that failed to abide by an agreement to provide him a multi-year override on his equity trading group’s net profit
- Defended a manager being investigated by the NYSE enforcement division over the propriety of a former broker’s promotion of outside investments for his customers
- Represented traders who were recruited away from a broker-dealer on the agreement to open a Texas office for an out-of-state firm when that firm subsequently declined to perform
- Represented a broker-dealer in a case involving allegations of a broker ignoring the claimant’s investment objectives and trading the account like a high risk account
- Represented several broker-dealers against competing broker-dealers on claims involving raiding and tortuous interference
- Represented a broker-dealer in a churning case tried in US District Court in light of the alleged forgery of a customer’s signature on the arbitration agreement
- Represented a commodities and futures trader in a dispute with his former firm alleging a miscalculation and overpayment of commissions leading to the trader setting up his own CBOE trading firm
- Obtained a defense verdict for a broker dealer and senior executives accused of federal and state securities violations
- Represented a one of the largest broker-dealers as a creditor in both bankruptcy and state courts, including successful challenges to debtors’ discharges
- Defended a number of officers and directors of a pre-IPO tech company against securities law violations
- Represented officers and directors in defense of "Blue Sky" and other state law securities litigation
- Represented financial institution officers and directors in litigation brought by shareholders and by banking regulators alleging securities law violations
- Served as co-counsel at a five-week jury trial defending one major corporation and several of its subsidiaries against a multi-million dollar partnership, employment, and fiduciary duty lawsuit
- Represented an investment company in a federal lawsuit brought against hundreds of defendants regarding the purported wrongful short-selling of a media holding company’s stock (developed our client’s case for summary judgment and then assisted in developing strategies that resolved the cases through a joint motion to dismiss)
- Represented a national brokerage firm in a Title VII discrimination case in which a former stock broker was awarded nothing on claims that he was terminated because of his race
- Represented an insurance carrier in claims by a broker-dealer under a fidelity policy involving an investigation of the company’s customer account security and funds-handing procedures
