UBS 'wrongfully' fired Idaho advisor in 2021: FINRA panel

UBS Financial Services wrongfully terminated a financial advisor based in Boise, Idaho four years ago and is on the hook for $1 million in damages, according to a three-person arbitration panel decision issued Tuesday by FINRA Dispute Resolutions Services. This FINRA division oversees private legal disputes between clients, advisors and broker-dealers. 

The financial advisor, Randy S. Anderson, worked for UBS for eight years until November 2020, when he was “discharged" - meaning fired - for allegedly failing to get a client’s verbal approval for trades and failing to a report an ensuing customer complaint, according to the advisor’s BrokerCheck profile.

Anderson, now working for Stifel Nicolaus & Co., then filed his complaint against UBS, alleging wrongful termination, breach of contract and other claims, according to the arbitration award. The decision was split: one of the three arbitrators dissented from the other two in its decision.

Facing allegations of a wrongful termination or firing is one of the big fears that many brokers and financial advisors live with when working at large institutions. The worry is they will be suspected of jumping ship to a rival, taking their clients along with them, and then work with a target on their back.

"UBS disagrees with the majority’s decision in this matter and is considering its options," a company spokesperson said. "We note the dissenting arbitrator’s analysis which details the spurious nature of the claims against UBS and concludes that the majority 'displayed a manifest disregard of the law.'" 

A majority of the panel also voted to expunge or clean Anderson’s BrokerCheck profile of the matter.

“We think this happened because of Anderson’s age and that he was possibly leaving,” said the advisor’s attorney in the matter, Jarrod Malone. “He played golf with a branch manager from a different firm around the time he was fired, but we have no evidence that he was seen.”  

UBS raised “serious questions” about the process of its firing of Anderson, according to the two arbitrators who voted in favor of the award.

Those questions included “a prolonged time to terminate, the severity of the offense, potential disparate treatment of [Anderson] as compared to others at [UBS], and potential financial motivations for termination.”

“Against that backdrop, [UBS] failed to present competent evidence of the actual reason for termination,” according to the FINRA award.

UBS purported to fire Anderson based upon unauthorized trading, but it conducted an investigation that produced only redacted documents, according to the consenting panelists.

UBS also told the arbitration panel that a specific individual made the termination decision and that person would testify at the hearing, according to the award. But it became clear that the individual had long disagreed with the firing and only "agreed" with it after being informed of the decision actually made by more senior members of management, none of which were present at the hearing.

“Additionally, [UBS] produced no documents explaining the decision to terminate and also questions were raised about documents missing from [Anderson’] files left at” UBS, according to the award.