The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority will form an arbitration task force of 13 lawyers, academics, industry officials and investor advocates in order to enhance the transparency, objectivity and efficiency of the agency’s securities arbitration forum, FINRA announced on Thursday.
The formation of the task force comes after the agency’s resolution of legal disputes between customers and brokers has been subject to much criticism with regard to perceived bias and lack of transparency, said The Wall Street Journal. Some also claim that FINRA does not properly perform background checks on arbitrators and is too quick to ignore “black marks” from brokers’ public records.
