Securities Lawyers Blog
According to the BrokerCheck records kept by Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) broker Anthony Pace (Pace) has been the subject of at least six customer complaints and one employment seperation. The customer complaint against Pace allege a number of securities law violations including that the broker made unsuitable investments, engaged in churning (excessive trading), misrepresentations, negligence, fraud, breach of fiduciary duty, and failure to execute among other claims.
Pace entered the securities industry in 1994. From 2005 through May 2009, Pace was associated with J.P. Turner & Company, L.L.C. (JP Turner). Thereafter from May 2009, until September 2010, Pace was registered with vFinance Investments, Inc. From there, Pace was associated with Global Arena Capital Corp from September 2010, through April 2015. Finally, Pace became associated with Alexander Capital, L.P. in March 2015.
Pace’s employment separation involved allegations by Global Arena Capital claiming that Pace allowed client information to be taken from the office by another person. The information was later returned to the firm.
All advisers have a fundamental responsibility to deal fairly with investors including making suitable investment recommendations. When brokers engage in churning the investment trading activity in the client’s account serves no reasonable purpose for the investor and is transacted to profit the broker through the generation of commission payments. The elements to establish a churning claim, which is considered a species of securities fraud, are excessive transactions of securities, broker control over the account, and intent to defraud the investor by obtaining unlawful commissions. A similar claim, excessive trading, under FINRA’s suitability rule involves just the first two elements. Certain commonly used measures and ratios used to determine churning help evaluate a churning claim. These ratios look at how frequently the account is turned over plus whether or not the expenses incurred in the account made it unreasonable that the investor could reasonably profit from the activity.
The number of complaints and regulatory actions against Pace is relatively large by industry standards. According to InvestmentNews, only about 12% of financial advisors have any type of disclosure event on their records. Brokers must disclose different types of events, not necessarily all of which are customer complaints. These disclosures can include IRS tax liens, judgments, and even criminal matters.
Investors who have suffered losses may be able recover their losses through securities arbitration. The attorneys at Gana Weinstein LLP are experienced in representing investors in cases where their broker has acted inappropriately. Our consultations are free of charge and the firm is only compensated if you recover.