Ex-Finra employee: I was fired for whistle blowing

A former employee of Finra filed a whistle-blower suit in federal court, claiming he was fired after detecting a flaw in the regulator's risk-rating system that allowed large broker-dealers to be over-leveraged. Joseph Sciddurlo, 58, claimed in the suit filed today that he worked as a principal examiner for the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority Inc. in 2010 when he discovered that the SRO's system allowed large firms to circumvent a Securities and Exchange Commission rule limiting leverage to 15 times net capital. Sciddurlo was initially “commended for his financial expertise and asked to design a better risk-rating methodology with respect to broker-dealers,” he claimed in a complaint filed in federal court in Manhattan. Later, he was downgraded, placed on probation and fired in May 2011, without a legitimate reason, Sciddurlo said. In the suit, Sciddurlo claimed Finra illegally discriminated against him on the basis of age and fired him for threatening to disclose the risk-rating flaw to other regulators and to the public. He's seeking at least $25 million in damages. Michelle Ong, a spokeswoman for Washington-based Finra, had no immediate comment on the suit. The case is Sciddurlo v. Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, 13-cv-02272, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan). -- Bloomberg News --