Securities Lawyers Blog
On September 11, 2014, FINRA, permanently barred Kenneth W. Schulz, a former broker of LPL Financial from associating with any FINRA member. According to the Letter of Acceptance, Waiver and Consent, in June 2013, Kenneth W. Schulz directed a registered assistant to impersonate six of Schulz’s former customers in phone calls to his prior firm requesting that the customers’ accounts be liquidated so that they could invest through Schulz at his new firm Commonwealth Financial network.
Schulz informed each of his customers that their securities holdings could be transferred “in kind” to accounts with Commonwealth. The customers agreed to transfer their securities to Commonwealth and authorized Schulz to initiate the transfers.
After the customers agreed to transfer the securities, Schulz learned that the customers’ securities could not be transferred in kind because the managed funds were proprietary to LPL Financial. Rather than inform his customers that the securities had to be liquidated before their funds could be transferred, Schulz had his assistant pretend to be the customers and had the accounts liquidated without customer consent.