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Guidance
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Disciplinary Actions
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Upcoming Deadlines and Effective Dates
- Election Notices
- SEC Request for Comment
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Education and Compliance Programs
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Register today for the next Small Firm Conference Call on Monday, December 5, at 4:30 p.m. ET. FINRA President and CEO Robert Cook and Vice President of Member Relations and Education Kayte Toczylowski will be joined by Senior Director of Testing and Continuing Education Joe McDonald and Vice President of FINRA CAT Business Paul McKenney to provide an update on the CE transformation and CAT implementation. Registration is open to all member firms.
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Tune in to the latest episode of the FINRA Unscripted podcast. On this encore episode, Sam Draddy, the head of FINRA’s Market Investigation Team, joins us to talk about the latest trends and patterns in FINRA’s fraud and insider trading investigations, including some stories about some of the craziest and most interesting cases of the past few years. Listen to the podcast.
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Guidance
FINRA published the Update on Sweep: Option Account Opening, Supervision and Related Areas—a follow-up to the August 2021 targeted examination ("sweep") of firms' practices and controls related to the opening of options accounts and related areas, including account supervision, communications and diligence. The update includes questions for firms to consider as they evaluate whether their supervisory systems are reasonably designed to address risks related to supervising the approval of options accounts—both self-directed and full-service brokerage accounts—and monitoring the trading activity in options accounts. This update builds upon FINRA’s ongoing commitment to provide transparency to member firms about our regulatory programs and initiatives, such as sweeps, to help them assess their compliance programs and address areas of concerns.
FINRA Regulatory Notice 22-25 alerts members to an emerging threat to customers and members, where FINRA, NASDAQ and NYSE have observed initial public offerings (IPOs) for certain small capitalization (small-cap) issuers listed on U.S. stock exchanges that may be the subject of pump-and-dump-like schemes (sometimes referred to as "ramp-and-dump" schemes in other jurisdictions).
FINRA requests comment on Regulatory Notice 22-26, a proposal to provide additional transparency into delayed Treasury spot trades in corporate debt securities—i.e., corporate bond trades where the dollar price of the trade is based on a spread to a benchmark U.S. Treasury security that was agreed upon at an earlier time on the same day.
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Disciplinary Actions
FINRA publishes disciplinary actions to remind registered representatives and firms of specific conduct that violates FINRA rules and may result in disciplinary action. FINRA recently published the November 2022 Monthly Disciplinary Actions.
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Upcoming Deadlines and Effective Dates
SEC Request for Comment
On November 10, 2022, the SEC issued an order instituting proceedings to determine whether to approve or disapprove FINRA’s proposal, as modified by Amendment No. 1, to amend the Codes of Arbitration Procedure to modify the current process relating to the expungement of customer dispute information. Comments are due December 7, 2022. Any rebuttals to comments filed with the SEC are due December 21, 2022. See the SEC Notice of Order.
On November 10, 2022, the SEC issued an order instituting proceedings to determine whether to approve or disapprove FINRA’s proposal to amend FINRA Rule 3110 (Supervision) to adopt new Supplementary Material .18 (Remote Inspections Pilot Program), a voluntary, three-year remote inspection pilot program to allow member firms to elect to fulfill their obligation under Rule 3110(c) (Internal Inspections) by conducting inspections of some or all branch offices and locations remotely without an on-site visit to such office or location, subject to specified terms. Comments are due December 7, 2022. Any rebuttals to comments filed with the SEC are due December 21, 2022. See the SEC Notice of Order.
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Education and Compliance Programs
Take advantage of our reduced registration rates and attend our new Firm Grouping Conference on Dec. 1, 2022, in Kissimmee, FL. This event is designed to provide financial professionals associated with FINRA member firms the opportunity to engage in conference panels tailored to their specific firm grouping. Join FINRA staff and industry peers for thoughtful discussions around the future landscape of the financial services industry. The two morning plenary sessions are available to watch virtually. View the agenda for additional details.
Register for all of FINRA’s upcoming events:
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