Aberrant Lower Court Decision Tossed

A Georgia appellate court recently reversed what could best be described as a wackadoodle lower court decision throwing out a FINRA arbitration award.

Wells Fargo was brought into arbitration by a customer who felt that his investments had been mismanaged. The decision reached by the FINRA panel was adverse to the customer who was ordered to pay $83,000. The customer filed a lawsuit in Georgia state court, seeking to have the decision vacated. The lower court granted that request, claiming that there was a secret agreement between Wells Fargo’s attorney and FINRA as to a certain arbitrator.

The appellate court reversed the vacation of the arbitration award, saying that FINRA was within its rights to grant the request to remove the arbitrator in question. Additionally, FINRA hired a law firm to investigate FINRA’s practices and procedures and that investigation turned up no wrongdoing.

As the investigation determined, FINRA is continually striving to make the arbitration selection processes more transparent for arbitration participants.

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