FINRA Dispute Resolution Task Force

Dispute Resolution is committed to providing a fair, efficient, and economical forum to resolve disputes among investors, securities firms, and individual brokers. To ensure that the forum meets the evolving needs of parties, FINRA formed a task force to consider possible enhancements to its arbitration and mediation forum. The task force comprised individuals, from the public and industry sectors, who represent a broad range of interests in securities dispute resolution. The members of the task force are set forth at the end of this page.

FINRA charged this group to work together to suggest strategies to enhance the transparency, impartiality, and efficiency of FINRA's securities dispute resolution forum for all participants. The task force and its subcommittees met 57 times over a period of 14 months, and established an email inbox to solicit comments. In addition, the task force solicited written comments from more than 30 interested organizations and individuals.

At its first in-person meeting on October 10, 2014, the task force agreed that it would be open to examine any issues that may affect the face of arbitration and mediation in the next 20 years and that no issue was off the table for discussion. It identified the 

 and established subcommittees to gather information and viewpoints on those topics and to report back to the full task force for consideration. At its second in-person meeting on January 22, 2015, the task force reviewed the progress of the subcommittees and agreed that they would continue to work through their topics and share their findings with the task force. At its third in-person meeting on May 14 -15, 2015, the task force reviewed the reports and recommendations made to date by the 10 subcommittees. To inform constituents of its work, the task force drafted an  of its progress. At its final, in-person meeting on October 2, 2015, the task force reviewed a first draft of its final report.

On December 16, 2015, the task force issued its final report with recommendations detailed in the 

.

The views expressed in the Final Report and Recommendations of the FINRA Dispute Resolution Task Force are those of the Task Force members. The Task Force is an independent group and its report does not necessarily reflect FINRA's views or policies. As with other potential changes to Dispute Resolution's rules, procedures, and policies, the recommendations in the report were considered by FINRA in consultation with FINRA's standing advisory committee, the National Arbitration and Mediation Committee (NAMC). The recommendations will also be vetted through the normal channels with FINRA's constituents, other advisory committees, and the FINRA Board. Any rule changes stemming from the report will need the approval of the Securities and Exchange Commission prior to implementation.

FINRA has released the following status reports detailing the progress of the task force recommendations. As detailed in its most recent status report below, FINRA has taken action on all of the 51 recommendations. Thus, this is intended to be the final status report on the implementation of the Task Force recommendations, subject to material future changes on specific items.

• FINRA Dispute Resolution Task Force Recommendations Status Report - January 15, 2019
• FINRA Dispute Resolution Task Force Recommendations Status Report - February 8, 2017
• FINRA Dispute Resolution Task Force Recommendations Status Report - September 30, 2016

Please contact Task Force Chairperson, Barbara Black, with any inquiries.