April 15, 2009
Securities and Exchange Commission
100 F Street, NE.,
Washington, DC 20549–1090.
Re: File Number SR–FINRA–2009–008
To the Staff of the Securities and Exchange Commission:
We greatly appreciate the opportunity to comment on the proposed amendments to the Form U-4. While the firm supports the amendments regarding the reporting of allegations of sales practice violations against registered persons made in arbitrations or litigation claims, we are concerned with the time allotted for compliance once enacted.
As proposed, firms will be required to file an amended to Form U-4 the first time a Form U-4 amendment is filed after the effective date of the proposed rule change, but no latter than 120 days following the effective date of the change. This will require each registered person to affirmatively indicate “yes” or “no” to the revised questions in section 14 and to sign section 15 of the Form U-4. This would be followed by the physical entry of the data into the CRD system by the firm’s licensing and registration staff. Any “yes answer will also require a DRP filing and the payment of the fees.
We would note that FINRA recognized that this change will require significant time to complete and has proposed 120 days to complete. However, firms will be required to track, obtain “wet” signatures, review any DRPs, enter the information into the CRD system and retain the documents. Based on our estimate, additional time will likely be required to ensure compliance. In further support of our estimate we considered NASD Notice to Members 06-12 issued in March 2006 that granted an extension to the effective Date of NASD Uniform Branch Office Definition and Certain Form BR and Form U4 Filing Requirements. This moved the deadline from May 1, 2006 to July 3, 2006 for those changes and it is clear that these changes will also take more time to complete.
As such we believe that additional time be allotted for firms to complete the filings.
Thank you for considering our comments.
Sincerely,
Steve Klein
Chief Compliance Officer
Farmers Financial Solutions, LLC