FINRA announced in June 2013 that it has fined Los Angeles-based Wedbush Securities, Inc. - Again! Wedbush has a long history of regulatory fines and censures for supervisory failures, customer abuses, and other brokerage firm misconduct. Wedbush agreed to pay a $75,000 fine and consented to FINRA's findings that it failed numerous times to provide information that FINRA had requested as part of one or more regulatory investigations. According to FINRA, many of its calls and e-mails to Wedbush went unanswered. FINRA also found that Wedbush failed to establish an adequate supervisory system.
This is just the latest in a long line of Wedbush misconduct. One of the more recent examples is an August 2012 FINRA fine of $300,000 for repeated regulatory violations. That FINRA matter also included a $25,000 fine directly against Wedbush's President and founder, Edward Wedbush, and a 31-day suspension related to Edward Wedbush's supervisory failures.
We do not expect this latest FINRA fine to cause Wedbush to change the way it does business. Despite repeated regulatory fines and a long history of customer complaints, Wedbush appears unwilling to takes its regulatory and legal obligations to its customers seriously. Dimond Kaplan & Rothstein, P.A. has represented numerous Wedbush Securities customers who collectively lost millions of dollars as a result of stockbroker misconduct and brokerage firm misconduct. Our firm continues to represent several former Wedbush customers in Los Angeles FINRA arbitration cases.
