SARASOTA, FL.— Shumaker announced today it secured a $1 million arbitration award on behalf of Randy S. Anderson, a financial advisor who was wrongfully terminated by UBS Financial Services in 2020.
The decision, issued by a Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) Dispute Resolution Services panel, concludes that UBS failed to provide credible evidence justifying Anderson's firing and raises serious concerns about the motives behind his termination.
Anderson, who had served as a financial advisor at UBS's Boise branch for eight years, was discharged in November 2020 for allegedly executing trades without client approval and failing to report a subsequent customer complaint. Shumaker Partners Jarrod Malone and Brandon Taaffe argued that the termination was wrongful and pretextual, potentially driven by Anderson's age and speculation he might leave the firm—a claim supported by UBS's own internal inconsistencies during the arbitration.
"This case highlights an ever present concern in the financial services industry—that an FA could be fired over minor technical violations of compliance rules and policies established by Broker Dealers ," said Shumaker Partner Jarrod Malone. "A termination in this industry without proper justification is devastating to an FA's business, setting off a chain of events that cause automatic FINRA investigations during which time other firms will not typically hire you."
"Careers shouldn't be derailed by speculation," said Shumaker Partner Brandon Taaffe. "This is an important win for fairness and transparency in the financial services industry. We're proud to help clear our client's name and hold firms accountable when they misuse internal processes to wrongly end someone's career."
A majority of the three-person FINRA arbitration panel agreed with Shumaker's claims, awarding Anderson $1 million in damages and voting to drastically modify the explanation of the incident in his FINRA BrokerCheck record to show all of the mitigating factors that did not justify the extreme sanction of termination. In its written opinion, the panel cited a number of troubling factors in UBS's handling of the termination, including:
- A prolonged and inconsistent investigative process;
- Redacted and incomplete documentation;
- Disparate treatment compared to other employees;
- Absence of testimony from the actual decision-makers; and
- Potential financial motivations behind the termination.
"Against that backdrop, UBS failed to present competent evidence of the actual reason for termination," the panel concluded. Anderson is currently employed at Stifel Nicolaus & Co.