Securities Lawyers Blog
According to records kept by The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) financial Broker Martin Lerner (Lerner), previously associated with David Lerner Associates, INC., has at least 3 disclosable events. These events include 2 customer complaints, one regulatory event, alleging that Lerner recommended unsuitable investments in different investment products including debt securities among other allegations and complaints.
FINRA BrokerCheck shows a final customer complaint on May 20, 2025.
Without admitting or denying the findings, Lerner consented to the sanctions and to the entry of findings that he failed to reasonably supervise sales of illiquid, proprietary limited partnerships to ensure that the sales were suitable for customers given their investment profiles. The findings stated that Lerner was aware of, but failed to reasonably investigate and respond to, red flags of potentially unsuitable recommendations of the limited partnerships. These red flags included patterns of sales of the illiquid limited partnerships to seniors and unsophisticated investors. They also included sales to customers made contemporaneously with changes to those customers’ investment profiles, including their liquid net worths and/or risk tolerances, which resulted in sales to customers for whom, without those changes, the customers were not eligible to purchase the limited partnerships. Upon learning of these red flags, instead of reasonably investigating to confirm that the products were suitable for these customers, Lerner approved such sales without further inquiry.