General & Financial Services
Industry Arbitration
We are able to investigate and respond to pre-arbitration customer complaints or claims on your behalf. We understand that every form of litigation, even arbitration, can be costly. In order to minimize the expense and inconvenience to our clients, we promptly evaluate the merits of each claim. If a claim has merit, we advise our clients and recommend a course of conduct that may prevent an arbitration claim from being filed, avoiding the cost and inconvenience of proceeding to arbitration.
We have extensive experience arbitrating claims before the FINRA, the New York Stock Exchange and the American Arbitration Association and have represented clients in arbitration proceedings throughout the country including New York, New Jersey, Alaska, Arkansas, California, Florida, Illinois, Louisiana, Michigan, Texas and Washington D.C.
Our attorneys combine their experience and knowledge of the securities industry with an understanding of the arbitration process, its practicalities, procedures, forums and methods of enforcement. Our staff has routinely handled claims involving allegations of securities fraud, sales practice violations, improper Form U-5 disclosure and employment disputes. We have also handled matters involving a wide range of financial instruments including common and preferred stock, futures contracts, options, mutual funds, corporate and government bonds, structured notes, emerging market debt, reverse repos, partnership interests, CMOs, ETFs, ETNs, derivatives and swaps.
When an arbitration claim is filed, we will work with your brokers and your supervisory personnel to prepare an intelligent, vigorous and strategically aggressive defense. We will obtain the information and documentation necessary to effectively evaluate the merits of the claim and promptly analyze the strengths and weaknesses of your adversary’s case and of your own. We will also prepare an effective answer, comprehensive discovery requests and prepare persuasive briefs, when necessary.
If it appears that your firm has exposure, we can recommend alternatives to a full-blown arbitration hearing. Mediation is a cost-effective alternative that permits a party to exercise control over the outcome rather than leaving it in the hands of an arbitration panel.
Of course, if you decide that we should proceed to hearing, we will effectively represent your interests at the hearing. We thoroughly prepare each of our witnesses to testify and, where necessary, we will recommend and work with expert witnesses to provide support to our defenses. We can utilize our contacts in the securities industry to retain recognized and respected industry experts to testify on your be