February 11, 2019
The purpose of this letter is to provide the Securities and Exchange Commission with comments on the above referenced proposed rule change which was filed by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, Inc. (FINRA) on February 6, 2019.
I am an attorney whose practice is exclusively devoted to the representation of individual and institutional investors in their disputes with the securities industry. Moreover, I am the current Chairman of FINRAs National Arbitration and Mediation Committee (NAMC) and a public member of the NAMC the former Chairman of FINRAs Discovery Task Force Committee (DTFC) a former member of the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC) Modernization Task Force and a former President and current Director Emeritus of the Public Investors Arbitration Bar Association (PIABA).
It is my understanding that the proposed amendments would amend FINRA Rule 12512(d) through (e) and FINRA Rule 12513(d) through (e) of the Code of Arbitration Procedure for Customer Disputes (Customer Code) and FINRA Rule 13512(d) through (e) and FINRA Rule 13513(d) through (e) of the Code of Arbitration Procedure for Industry Disputes (Industry Code) so as to expand the time for non-parties to respond to arbitration subpoenas and orders of appearance of witnesses or production of documents, and to make related changes to enhance the discovery process for forum users.
It is my opinion that the proposed amendments would address forum users concerns and would help ensure that non-parties wanting to object to an order or subpoena have sufficient time to do so.
It is my further opinion that the proposed amendments, which would require forum users to serve or transmit discovery-related documents only through overnight mail service, overnight delivery, hand delivery, email or facsimile, would enable forum users to be better able to confirm and facilitate the timing of discovery obligations.
In summary, both of these proposed changes would be a fair, equitable and reasonable approach that would expedite and facilitate the efficiency of the arbitration process and should, accordingly, be approved by the SEC on an expedited basis.
Thank you for providing me with the opportunity to submit my comments on this rule filing.