Financial Services and Banking

Strength in numbers

FMG's Financial Services & Banking National Practice Section is a multi-disciplinary team of professionals who represent financial institutions, as well as financial professionals, in a wide spectrum of transactional, regulatory, and securities matters in both litigated and non-litigated contexts.

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Reach & Depth

FMG’s Financial Services & Banking National Practice Section is a multi-disciplinary team of professionals who represent financial institutions, as well as financial professionals, in a wide spectrum of transactional, regulatory, and securities matters in both litigated and non-litigated contexts. Our professionals have a comprehensive understanding of the financial services industry and their practice includes a number of sub-specialties including accountants and financial professionals, registered representatives and investment advisors, broker-dealers, and Registered Investment Advisors (RIA). FMG’s legal team represents financial institutions, their senior executives, brokers, and other registered personnel in securities arbitration, litigation, and regulatory matters.

Our professionals also provide counseling in emerging areas of law such as data security and privacy issues, financial elder abuse, and guidelines issued by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). The group’s Partners have represented clients ranging from community banks to money-center financial institutions, including commercial banks and savings institutions, finance companies, credit card issuers, trust companies, investment advisors, broker-dealers, credit unions, mortgage originators, and insurance companies, in the areas shown below. Our team includes former in-house counsel, CPAs, SEC officials, and chief compliance officers who have decades of experience in all aspects of financial services CTA matters.

Successes

FMG attorneys, Chad Weaver and Elizabeth Lowery, obtained a favorable result for a prominent life insurance company after a three week FINRA arbitration. The matter involved a FINRA claim filed by two registered representative claimants against their former broker-dealer. The claimant’s alleged that the former broker-dealer had (i) wrongfully terminated them, (ii) wrongfully interfered with their brokerage business, and (iii) the reasons for their termination provided on their Forms U5 were defamatory. A few years later, three FINRA Arbitrators issued an award denying the majority of their claims as well as the majority of their alleged damages. The claimants then amended their claim and sought $11.6 million in compensatory damages, plus costs, attorney’s fees, punitive damages, and injunctive relief. After a failed mediation, the parties participated in another FINRA arbitration, in which Chad Weaver and Elizabeth Lowery vigorously cross examined the claimants, as well as their expert, which led to the claimants reducing their alleged compensatory damages to $7 million. The award issued by the FINRA arbitrators denied one of the claimant’s claims entirely and provided the remaining claimant with an award of $61,274, an amount significantly less than the millions originally sought.