This May the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (“FINRA”) made revisions to its Sanction Guidelines pertaining to misrepresentations and suitability. The Sanction Guidelines were developed for FINRA by The National Adjudicatory Council (“NAC”) to assist Hearing Panels and the NAC (collectively, the “Adjudicators”) to determine appropriate disciplinary sanctions. Periodically, the NAC reviews the Sanction Guidelines to determine whether current sanctions “are sufficient to achieve deterrence and reflect sanction trends in litigated and settled cases.”While the NAC did not cite examples of violations as an impetus for the changes, a review of the Sanction Guidelines found that current sanctions were not sufficient to achieve deterrence. Below are highlights of the NAC’s revisions to the Sanction Guidelines from FINRA’s Regulatory Notice 15-15 :
- Revisions to the Sanction Guideline Related to Fraud, Misrepresentations or Material Omissions of Fact
- Revisions to the Sanction Guideline Related to Suitability – Unsuitable Recommendations
- Revisions to the General Principles Applicable to All Sanction Determinations, Nos. 1 and 2
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