Camardas: None of the 70,000 CFPs are entitled to their day in court

We think it paramount at this juncture to point out that this decision was not at all about the merits of our case or the fairness of the CFP Board's rules. The court decided the entire case by accepting the CFP Board's case law on voluntary organizations (Masonic lodge associations, country clubs, college sororities, etc.), finding we “may not re-litigate the … proceedings of a private organization in court.” We disagree these cases support this finding, but the court's decision was completely confined to the simplistic ruling that the CFP Board — as a social-club-like private organization — can treat its licensees any way it wishes. We believe this is very wrong, and ominous, given the CFP Board's regulatory ambitions, and that its $50 million ad campaign has made its license the preeminent planning credential. The decision is not a substantive determination of the merits of the Camarda case, which has essentially not yet been heard outside of the CFP Board's control. The court did not consider the substance, instead finding a private body could enforce its rules — unfairly, arbitrarily, capriciously or otherwise — any way it alone sees fit. It's worth underscoring the fact that the court did not even consider our arguments or evidence, or the fairness of our treatment by CFP Board. It merely ruled the CFP Board could do whatever it pleases. Nearly all of the testimony, documents and discovery remain confidential. We hope that one day soon these restrictions will be removed and we can share our story. The court may have ruled against us, but it was only due to a reading of the law that none of more than 70,000 certificants are entitled to their day in court if the CFP Board mistreats them during the CFP Board's self-administered internal proceedings or otherwise. The fact still remains that we were very unfairly treated throughout the entire process, and no one outside of us and the board knows the details. We continue to vehemently maintain that the board's handling of us was grossly unfair and just plain wrong. There was and is no “fee-only” rule in the Rules of Conduct. There are clear rules on compensation disclosure, and we overcomplied with them, yet this was ignored by the board and the court. We strongly believe the sealed record overwhelmingly shows that the board ignored its own rules and procedural requirements to reach a predetermined conclusion. Sadly, the evidence of this — and much more — remains sealed. The CFP Board's ethical framework — comprising the rules of conduct, practice standards and disciplinary rules — is founded on these principles: integrity, objectivity, competence, fairness, confidentiality, diligence and professionalism. From the very beginning in 2011, we felt the board has not acted in accordance with these principals, and that we needed to stand up for them, not only for ourselves but for consumers and certificants everywhere. All that said, this has been a long, draining process for us. We are weary. We have spent a great deal of our own money on this action because we think that what the CFP Board has done is wrong, and quite bad for the public and the profession. But this has been very hard on our family, and our business. Obviously we don't have the resources or the taxing power of the CFP Board. The emotional toll has been staggering. But in the end, we felt it was a fight — which history put in our laps, rightly or wrongly — that needed to be fought, and we have done the best we could with it. Jeffrey Camarda is chairman and CIO and Kimberly Camarda is president of Camarda Wealth Advisory Group.