Ex-Edward Jones advisor wins defamation fight against old firm

More than a dozen years after being discharged - i.e. fired - by Edward Jones, a financial advisor on Friday won his legal battle against his old firm in which the advisor claimed the firm used defamatory language on his employment record when he was shown the door.

The advisor, Matthew J. Hawk, worked at Edward Jones from December 2008 to January 2013 and now is an advisor at Cambridge Capital Management, a registered investment advisor.

According to his investment advisor public disclosure, Edward Jones fired Hawk after he gave inaccurate information on a client’s life insurance application. Hawk responded by saying he had submitted information that the client was a non-smoker when even though the client had recently smoked cigarettes.

Hawk filed his claim against Edward Jones last year with FINRA Dispute Resolution Services as the arbitration forum. In the decision Friday made by a sole arbitrator, the ruling was to expunge or erase parts of Hawk’s employment record, which is public, “based on the defamatory nature of the information,” according to the arbitration award.

Hawk’s arbitration claim was an expungement matter and did not seek any monetary damages. According to the award, Edward Jones “took no position” on Hawk’s request to expunge his work record.

A spokesperson for Edward Jones did not return a phone call Monday morning to comment. Hawk also did not return a phone call to comment.

According to the FINRA award, Hawk’s work record will remain the same as to the reason for the firing but the explanation will be deleted and replaced with this language: “Mr. Hawk was improperly investigated for an exaggerated claim of having committed fraud. No customers were involved, there were no acts of wrongful taking of property, violation of investment-related statutes, regulations or rules and no SEC or FINRA rules, codes or policies were violated by Mr. Hawk.”

Financial advisors live in fear of a large firm dirtying their work histories after they leave a firm. A common argument among many advisors and attorneys in the retail securities industry is that big firms will purposefully throw dirt at a broker on his or her way out the door and muck up the work history to make even more difficult to find a job at a new firm.

Just last week, a three-person FINRA arbitration panel found that UBS Financial Services wrongfully terminated a financial advisor based in Boise, Idaho four years ago and was on the hook for $1 million in damages.