A Finra hearing panel expelled Alpine Securities, a broker-dealer in Salt Lake City, and ordered it to pay more than $2.3 million in restitution to customers, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority Inc. announced Thursday.
According to Finra’s statement, Alpine converted and misused customers’ funds and securities, charged its customers unreasonable fees and unfair prices on securities transactions, engaged in unauthorized trading and made an unauthorized capital withdrawal.
The Finra hearing panel also ordered Alpine Securities to permanently cease and desist from converting or misusing customers’ funds or securities.
According to Finra’s complaint, Alpine Securities was one of the largest clearing firms in the U.S. in 2018, when it ran into financial problems that it blamed on rising legal and compliance costs. At the time, Alpine was defending itself against Securities and Exchange Commission charges that it had violated securities laws.
Because of its financial difficulties, Alpine told retail customers that it could no longer do retail business and would impose a $5,000 monthly account fee on retail customers who didn’t close their accounts.
But the firm gave its customers little notice, Finra said, and because it had cut back on staffing and had made a change in its back-office system, customers with questions had a hard time getting them answered.
After hearing the case for 19 days, the Finra panel determined that the $5,000 monthly account fee, along with a 1% per day illiquidity fee and a $1,500 certificate withdrawal fee that Alpine charged were unreasonable. The panel also decided that Alpine’s appropriation of customer positions worth $1,500 or less for a penny per position and a 2.5% market-making/execution fee resulted in unfair prices.
“Alpine Securities’ customers’ outstanding losses in this case are well in excess of $2 million,” the hearing panel said in its decision. "Individually, the violations in this case are amongst the most egregious in the securities industry."
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