Securities Lawyers Blog
According to records kept by The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) financial Broker John Dow (Dow), previously associated with Morgan Stanley, has at least 2 disclosable events. These events include one customer complaint, one tax lien, alleging that Dow recommended unsuitable investments in different investment products including debt securities among other allegations and complaints.
FINRA BrokerCheck shows a final customer complaint on January 06, 2025.
Without admitting or denying the findings, Dow consented to the sanction and to the entry of findings that he refused to produce documents requested by FINRA in connection with its investigation into a Form U5 filed by his member firm relating to his administration of a family member client’s estate. The findings stated that the firm filed the U5 disclosing that Dow had terminated his association with the firm while under internal review for non-Firm approved activities involving representative’s family member, including serving as an executor of the family member’s estate and activities with respect to two outside checking accounts held with the family member.
FINRA BrokerCheck shows a pending customer complaint on January 31, 2024.
Claim alleges, inter alia, that the FA exploited his personal familial relationship with the client to take control of client’s assets in his role as power of attorney
Under the securities laws brokers are obligated to act in their clients’ best interests and provide only suitable recommendations for investments to the client. In addition, the SEC has promulgated ‘Regulation Best Interest (Reg BI)‘ which according to the SEC enhanced the broker-dealer standard of conduct beyond existing suitability obligations and requires broker-dealers to act in the best interest of a retail customer when making a recommendation of any securities transaction or investment strategy involving securities. Regulation Best Interest and the fiduciary standard for investment advisers are drawn from key fiduciary principles that include an obligation to act in the retail investor’s best interest and not to place their own interests ahead of the investor’s interest.
Brokers have an obligation to first obtain and evaluate sufficient information about a retail investor to form a reasonable basis to believe the account recommendations are in the retail investor’s best interest. Recommendations cannot be based on materially inaccurate or incomplete information. Data on the investor and the expense of the advice are consistently part of material information. Types of costs that must be considered including account fees, commissions and transaction costs, tax considerations, as well as indirect costs.
In addition to obligation to understand the customer the broker must also investigate the product being sold. FINRA firms have an obligation to conduct a reasonable investigation of the issuer and the securities they recommend in offerings. A brokerage firm has a special relationship with a customer from the fact that in recommending the security, the broker represents to the customer that a reasonable investigation has been made. So, a brokerage firm should not depend solely on the issuer for data about a company instead of performing its own thorough review.
Additional investor safeguards include broker disclosure requirements. FINRA requires the broker to disclosure events such as customer complaints, IRS tax liens, judgments, investigations, terminations, and even criminal matters on their public BrokerCheck reports. FINRA has recognized that recent research shows brokers with a past record of regulatory or customer complaint issues are more likely to have such problems again in the future. FINRA’s Office of the Chief Economist (OCE) published a study showing the predictability of disciplinary and disclosure events based on past similar events. The OCE study showed that past disclosure events, including regulatory actions, customer arbitrations and litigations of brokers, have significant power to predict future investor harm. The data shows that where a member firm on-boards brokers with a significant history of misconduct there is a high likelihood that the broker will continue to engage in similar behavior.
Dow has been in the securities industry for more than 29 years. Dow has been registered as a Broker with Morgan Stanley since 2012.
Investors who have suffered losses are encouraged to contact us at (800) 810-4262 for consultation. At Gana Weinstein LLP, our attorneys are experienced representing investors who have suffered securities losses due to the mishandling of their accounts. Claims may be brought in securities arbitration before FINRA. Our consultations are free of charge and the firm is only compensated if you recover.
