Securities Lawyers Blog
According to records kept by The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) financial Broker Robert Yedid (Yedid), previously associated with Lifesci Capital, has at least one disclosable event. These events include one tax lien, alleging that Yedid recommended unsuitable investments in different investment products including debt securities among other allegations and complaints.
FINRA BrokerCheck shows a final customer complaint on December 19, 2024.
Without admitting or denying the findings, Yedid consented to the sanctions and to the entry of findings that he shared $6,000 in transaction-related compensation with an unregistered person. The findings stated that Yedid’s member firm served as co-manager on a secondary public offering for an issuer that Yedid referred to the firm. As compensation for the referral, the firm paid Yedid a percentage of the co-manager fees it earned in connection with the offering. Yedid was aware that the individual with whom he shared transaction-based compensation was not registered as they were employed by an affiliate of his firm and supported the secondary public offering as part of the issuer’s investor relations team. After Yedid’s firm discovered the payment he made to the unregistered person, the firm suspended him for two weeks and imposed a $6,000 fine, which he paid.
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.
Another protective measure for investors is the requirement for brokers to disclose. Brokers are required to disclose reportable events such as customer complaints, IRS tax liens, judgments, investigations, terminations, and even criminal matters on FINRA’s BrokerCheck reports for public viewing. FINRA has acknowledged that recent studies provide evidence of the predictability of future regulatory and customer complaint issues for brokers with a history of such events. 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.
Yedid has been in the securities industry for more than 22 years. Yedid has been registered as a Broker with Lifesci Capital since 2016.
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.
