UBS, broker to pay $805,000 in Finra award

A hearing panel of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority Inc. has awarded a customer of UBS broker Michael James Keane $805,120, the latest in a series of payments he has faced in the past several years to satisfy client complaints. Finra said that Mr. Keane, a broker in the firm's Melville, N.Y., office, and UBS are jointly liable for the award. From May 2008 to November 2015, according to Mr. Keane's BrokerCheck record, the broker was alleged to have recommended an unsuitable investment strategy in energy stocks, master limited partnerships and business development companies, and misrepresented the risks associated with the strategy. The claimants, Scott H. Feldman and the Scott H. & Janet J. Feldman Revocable Trust, charged the broker and UBS with negligence, negligent misrepresentation, fraud by misrepresentation, fraudulent concealment, breach of fiduciary duty, unjust enrichment, breach of contract and breach of the duty of good faith and fair dealing. In making the award, the panel denied Mr. Keane's request for expungement of his CRD records. In July 2016, according to BrokerCheck, Mr. Keane settled a claim in which claimants alleged that he "recommended unsuitable, high-risk investments and misrepresented the risk associated with these investments." They had asked for $100,000 in damages and settled for $37,500. In 2015, Mr. Keane settled another claim, which alleged that he recommended unsuitable energy stocks, for $25,000. A similar claim against him in 2013 was settled for $55,000. Mr. Keane began his securities career in 1968 at Merrill Lynch and worked at several firms over the years, including Bache, E.F. Hutton, Lehman Brothers and Citigroup, before joining UBS in 2007.