Securities Lawyers Blog
The law offices of Gana Weinstein LLP are currently investigating advisor Paul Soll (Soll), formerly registered with Western International Securities, Inc. (Western International) and Financial West Group (FWG) out of Los Angeles, California. According to records kept by The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), Soll was barred from the financial industry for failing to provide the regulator with information about his trading activities that concern possible excessive trading a securities law violation that is similar to churning. According to a BrokerCheck report, Soll also disclosed at least one customer complaint alleging breach of fiduciary duty.
In July 2018, FINRA stated that Soll violated FINRA Rules 8210 and 2010 by failing to provide the regulator with information about his potential trading abuses. Soll was thereby barred from the securities industry.
Moreover, a customer filed a complaint alleging that Soll engaged in breach of fiduciary duty, breach of contract, and misrepresentation in the sale of bonds. The amount of damages was not specified. The claim settled for $660,574.
When brokers engage in excessive trading, sometimes referred to as churning, the broker will typical trade in and out of securities, sometimes even the same stock, many times over a short period of time. Often times the account will completely “turnover” every month with different securities. This type of investment trading activity in the client’s account serves no reasonable purpose for the investor and is engaged in only to profit the broker through the generation of commissions created by the trades. Churning is considered a species of securities fraud. The elements of the claim are excessive transactions of securities, broker control over the account, and intent to defraud the investor by obtaining unlawful commissions. A similar claim, excessive trading, under FINRA’s suitability rule involves just the first two elements. Certain commonly used measures and ratios used to determine churning help evaluate a churning claim. These ratios look at how frequently the account is turned over plus whether or not the expenses incurred in the account made it unreasonable that the investor could reasonably profit from the activity.
According to newsources, a study revealed that 7.3% of financial advisors had a customer complaint on their record when records from 2005 to 2015 were examined. Brokers must publicly disclose reportable events on their BrokerCheck reports that include customer complaints, IRS tax liens, judgments, investigations, terminations, and criminal cases. In addition, research has shown a disturbing pattern with troublesome brokers where brokers with high numbers of customer complaints are not kicked out of the industry but instead these brokers are sifted to lower quality brokerage firms with loose hiring practices and higher rates of customer complaints. These lower quality firms may average brokers with five times as many complaints as the industry average.
Soll entered the securities industry in 1970. From June 2012 until August 2017 Soll was registered with Financial West Group. From August 2017 until June 2018 Soll was associated with Western International out of the firm’s Los Angeles, California office location.
Investors who have suffered losses are encouraged to contact us at (800) 810-4262 for consultation. Investors may be able recover their losses through securities arbitration. The attorneys at Gana Weinstein LLP are experienced in representing investors in cases of selling away and brokerage firms failure to supervise their representatives. Our consultations are free of charge and the firm is only compensated if you recover.