Securities Arbitration Lawyer Blog
FINRA has suspended financial advisor Jay Clint Tomlinson from the securities industry for three months and fined him $7,500. Mr. Tomlinson’s sanctions arise from his improper use of discretion without written authorization when placing 379 trades in three customers’ accounts.
FINRA has also censured Tomlinson’s employer, New York financial services firm R.F. Lafferty & Co., Inc., and ordered the firm to pay a fine of $55,000. R.F. Lafferty & Co., Inc. (“R.F. Lafferty”) failed to maintain order memoranda that accurately reflected whether trades were solicited or unsolicited for more than 56,000 trades in customer accounts. R.F. Lafferty also failed to establish and maintain a supervisory system, and failed to enforce written supervisory procedures, reasonably designed to achieve compliance with applicable recordkeeping laws, regulations, and rules pertaining to review and retention of order memoranda.
This is not the first time Mr. Tomlinson and R.F. Lafferty have been sanctioned by FINRA. In November 2012, Mr. Tomlinson was suspended for 30 days and fined $7,500 for failing to timely provide documents and information to FINRA. At the time, Mr. Tomlinson was the Chief Compliance Officer at Brimberg & Co. Brimberg & Co. was expelled from the securities industry by FINRA for failing to pay its monetary fines.