FINRA Panel Awards Customer $100,000 against JP Morgan

A New York FINRA arbitration panel has awarded customers Thomas and Kathleen Fuchs $100,000 on the claim they filed against JP Morgan LLC and Philip N. Dub.

The claim alleged excessive trading, churning, fraud and failure to supervise. The claim involved trading in Emerald Oil and other securities.

The claim sought $1 million in compensatory damages and $3 million in punitive damages.

The panel awarded the Fuchs $100,000. The award, dated August 8, 2017, was against JP Morgan alone. The panel dismissed the claim against Dub. However, the panel also denied Dub’s request that the disclosure of this customer dispute on his Central Registration Depository (“CRD”) complaint history be expunged.

The panel also noted in the award that the attorneys for JP Morgan had requested expungement on behalf of “unnamed parties” Michael Ferguson and Ivan Alfaro. A review of Ferguson’s and Alfaro’s BrokerCheck disclosures indicate that this arbitration is reported. The wording of the disclosure indicates that Ferguson and Alfaro were supervisors of Dub. They all worked at a JP Morgan office on Park Avenue in New York City.

However, the request for expungement of this disclosure on their CRD histories was withdrawn prior to the completion of the hearing.

This award is somewhat unusual in that while the panel specifically dismissed the claims versus Dub, they declined to order the expungement of this event from his CRD. Presumably, whatever Dub did was not so terrible that the panel wanted to hold him personally liable for the claimants’ losses; yet they did not feel expungement was appropriate.

Dub and Ferguson no longer work in the securities industry. Alfaro, who has three other customer dispute settlements listed on his BrokerCheck report, is still employed at JP Morgan.

If you have questions or concerns regarding the handling of your brokerage account, you should contact the securities arbitration attorneys at Lubiner, Schmidt & Palumbo.