Defending the Brokerage Firm
You cannot put a price tag on Kaufmann Gildin’s years of experience in securities arbitration, litigation and regulatory investigations and prosecutions.
- As former securities law prosecutors, we understand the workings of state and federal agencies that investigate and bring securities fraud cases, both criminally and civilly.
- As former regulators of the securities industry at a major stock exchange, we have intimate familiarity with the world of “self-regulation.”
- As arbitrators we have a unique perspective on customer and industry cases brought in arbitration.
- As mediators in the securities industry and in other commercial disputes, we are able to quickly uncover the strengths and weaknesses of your adversary’s case and your own.
- As counsel to customers, we have an appreciation of their needs and the expectations they have of brokers and firms.
- As counsel to brokers, we can determine whether they will be a help or hindrance to the successful defense of an arbitration or disciplinary proceeding.
- As counsel to brokerage firms throughout the country, we can evaluate your compliance and supervisory system to reduce the chances of broker misconduct and, if wrongdoing has already taken place, recommend procedures to prevent its recurrence.
From the first signs of a customer complaint until its resolution – through settlement or contested hearings – Kaufmann Gildin brings its wealth of experience to either “damage control” or vindication.
At the outset of a customer complaint we assess its merits and recommend a course of conduct that can prevent an arbitration claim from being filed, thereby maintaining the otherwise unblemished records of your brokers and your firm.
If a claim is filed we will work with your brokers and your supervisory personnel to devise a “trial strategy” – from the contents of an effective Answer, through comprehensive discovery requests, witness preparation and presentation at the hearings. Where necessary, we will recommend and work with expert witnesses to provide support to our defense.
Even if it appears that your firm has exposure in a case, we can recommend alternatives to a full-flown arbitration hearing, thereby controlling the outcome, rather than leaving it in the hands of an arbitration panel. Mediation has become the cost-effective alternative to securities arbitration. It controls the risks that arbitrators “can get it wrong.” Our partner in charge of the securities dispute group, David E. Robbins, is a noted mediator, often being retained by large brokerage firms to settle customer and industry disputes. His settlement rate as a mediator for all securities arbitrations exceeds 90%.
Even if it appears that FINRA Regulation has a strong case against one of your brokers or against the firm for supervisory issues, we can either negotiate a reasonable settlement or represent you in contested hearings, where our success rate is quite impressive.
While our senior partner in the securities dispute group, David E. Robbins, has written and edited most of the books in securities arbitration law, we know that it is an understanding of the unwritten practices and procedures that will often determine the outcome of a dispute with a customer. Retaining Kaufmann Gildin enables you to take advantage of that hard earned knowledge.
The New York Law Journal has stated that the two volume treatise Securities Arbitration Procedure Manual, written by our partner in charge of securities arbitration and brokerage defense cases, David E. Robbins, is considered “the Bible” in this area of the law. All securities arbitration cases, self-regulatory matters and SEC proceedings at Kaufmann Gildin are personally overseen by Mr. Robbins.
