Sense on Cents

Time and again, Wall Street’s self-regulator FINRA has failed to provide real transparency into its inner workings and operations. Despite FINRA’s intransigence, the pursuit continues.  Sense on Cents salutes Lt. Colonel Elton Johnson, Jr., President of Amerivet Securities, for persevering in this admirable effort to provide a window into FINRA.

Johnson appeals to FINRA’s members to compel the regulator to accede to requests for transparency at its upcoming 2010 Annual Meeting. Johnson’s requests have already been rebuffed by FINRA’s board. Why is the board unwilling to open FINRA’s books and records? Johnson’s requests are non-binding.

In light of the challenges investors and all American citizens have experienced over the last few years, who in our nation would not fully support the following proposals which were presented to FINRA members in the following format for its upcoming annual meeting:

Proposal 2: FINRA should be required to disclose in each annual report the compensation for the top ten most highly paid FINRA employees and the amount of any funds paid to compensation consultants;
Proposal 3: There should be an independent study of ties between current/former FINRA directors/officers with Bernard L. Madoff, his family members and any of their affiliates;
Proposal 4: There should be disclosure of FINRA investment transactions, policies and practices;
Proposal 5: The Board of Governors meetings should be public, unless absolutely necessary to protect the confidentiality of individual regulatory issues;
Proposal 6: FINRA members should have a non-binding “say-on-pay” for the five most highly compensated FINRA employees;
Proposal 7: FINRA should employ an independent private sector inspector general to oversee its performance; and
Proposal 8: FINRA should disclose (without redaction) all its correspondence with the IRS concerning the $35,000 payment to members in connection with the consolidation of NASD and NYSE Regulation.

For those interested in reviewing the 8-page document in its entirety, I submit the following (click on image to open pdf document):

What is FINRA hiding?

Keep punchin’!!

LD

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 3rd, 2010 at 7:30 AM and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.