FINRA Fine Churning of Senior

On Sep. 17, FINRA fined Vanderbilt $100k for undue churning.

  • Vanderbilt Securities, and Barry Alan Champney fined $100k and 5k respectively.

Alleged Violations

  • Procedures acknowledged regular trades in the same security may be unsuitable.
  • But did not give guidance for detecting or preventing excess trading or churning.
  • No systemic tracking of turnover rates and cost-to-equity ratios, in the accounts.
  • Champney effected over 3,500 transactions in a 93-year-old customer’s account.
  • Resulted in about $723k losses for client, but $735k in commissions for the firm.
  • Firm noticed red flags of the misconduct and did not reasonably respond to them.
  • Champney was aware of trading, losses and commissions in customer’s accounts.
  • Observed that accounts appeared on firm’s activity report in 23 out of 30 months.

Sanctions

  • As well as fines, settlement payment of $470k was made to customer's guardian.
  • Champney suspended from association with FINRA members in principal capacity.
  • After a three months suspension must requalify passing the requisite examination.