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Archive for the ‘Securities Arbitration’ Category

First Circuit Court of Appeals Decides Close Case in Favor of Confirming FINRA Arbitration Panel Award: Raymond James Financial Services, Inc. v. Fenyk

May 1st, 2015 Arbitration Practice and Procedure, Authority of Arbitrators, Awards, Choice-of-Law Provisions, Confirmation of Awards, Federal Courts, Grounds for Vacatur, Judicial Review of Arbitration Awards, Manifest Disregard of the Agreement, Manifest Disregard of the Law, Securities Arbitration, Statute of Limitations, United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit Comments Off on First Circuit Court of Appeals Decides Close Case in Favor of Confirming FINRA Arbitration Panel Award: Raymond James Financial Services, Inc. v. Fenyk

Introduction

Probably most of the Federal Arbitration Act Section 10(a)(4) outcome-review challenges that parties file are disposed of pretty easily because the applicable highly-deferential standard of review forecloses relief as long as the arbitrators were at least arguably interpreting the parties’ agreement, the applicable law or both. The most challenging cases are those falling either on or close to that imaginary, blurry line dividing arguable interpretation from clear disregard of the contract.  Cf. Chicago Typographical Union v. Chicago Sun-Times, 935 F.2d 1501, 1506 (7th Cir. 1991) (“The zanier the award, the less plausible it becomes to ascribe it to a mere error in interpretation rather than to a willful disregard of the contract. This approach can make the line between error and usurpation waver.”).

yay-14640034-digitalIn Raymond James Financial Services, Inc. v.  Corp. v. Fenyk, No. 14-1252, slip op. (3rd Cir. Mar. 11, 2015), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit addressed one of those challenging cases. The panel in a FINRA arbitration (the “FINRA Arbitration Panel” or “Panel”) awarded a discharged stock broker $600,000.00 in back pay for wrongful termination, but the district court vacated the arbitration award because it concluded that the FINRA Arbitration Panel did not have the authority to award back pay in the circumstances. On appeal the First Circuit reversed, explaining in clear and cogent terms why the case, while close, was not one warranting Section 10(a)(4) vacatur.

Facts

Mr. Fenyk served as a Raymond James Financial Services (“Raymond James” or “James”) securities broker for seven years. His career there began in New York City, but he worked in Vermont beginning in 2004, managing a small branch office. He had an independent contractor agreement with Raymond James, entitled “Independent Sales Associate Agreement,” which stipulated that Florida law would govern any disputes. He also executed a Business Ethics Policy, which required him to arbitrate disputes “arising out of the independent contractor relationship.”

yay-17336082-digitalIn May 2009 Raymond James, during a routine client-communication review, discovered an e-mail sent to Fenyk’s former domestic partner, which suggested that Fenyk had an alcohol problem.  The e-mail referred to “Fenyk’s ‘slip’ and his ‘need [for] meetings and real sobriety for a dialoug [sic] with you.'” The e-mail also explained that “Fenyk’s ‘new AA friend was very hard on [him] last night.'” Slip op. at 3.

Raymond James terminated its relationship with Fenyk after it learned about Fenyk’s apparent alcohol problem. About  two years later, Fenyk filed suit “in Vermont state court alleging that he had been fired on account of his sexual orientation and his status as a recovering a recovering alcoholic, in violation of Vermont’s Fair Employment Practices Act (“VFEPA”), Vt. Stat. Ann. tit. 21, § 495.” Slip op. at 4. Fenyk subsequently agreed to dismiss his complaint and commence a Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (“FINRA”) arbitration, as required by his agreement with Raymond James. Continue Reading »

Two Upcoming and Notable ADR-Related Events of Interest

June 3rd, 2010 Events, Mediation, Negotiation, Securities Arbitration Comments Off on Two Upcoming and Notable ADR-Related Events of Interest

Our good friends Don Philbin and Victoria Pynchon are presenting this June on ADR-related subjects. 

On June 9, 2010, Don Philbin will be giving a presentation entitled “Deal or No Deal — Negotiation Strategy in Mediations,” as part of a Securities Arbitration & Mediation CLE program sponsored by the City Bar Center for CLE and other organizations.  (The program agenda is here.)  The program will be held at 9:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. on June 9, 2010 at the New York City Bar (formerly “The Association of the Bar of the City of New York”), 42 West 44th Street, New York, New York 10036.   A one-hour networking lunch follows, beginning at 12:00 noon.  The program offers California, New York and Illinois CLE credit.  For information about fees and registration, click here or call the New York City Bar at (212) 382-6663.  

Don is an excellent speaker and has a unique, brain-science-oriented approach to negotiation and mediation.  He is also a very experienced arbitrator, mediator, attorney and consultant, whose many contributions to the ADR world include the ADR Highlight Reel (read about it here).   You can read about one of his prior presentations here, and his Forum guest post here and here. 

On June 10, 2010 Victoria Pynchon, along with John W. Tinghitella, is hosting a Negotiation for Women Workshop to be held in Pasedena, California.   The promotional materials for Vickie’s workshop point out some troubling statistics: 

  1. Women are 4 times less likely to negotiate their salaries after college and they lose up to a million dollars over their careers as a result
  2. Women own and manage 40% of all small businesses in the U.S., but obtain only 2 ½% of available venture capital
  3. Women continue to earn 77 cents on every male dollar. Professional women earn even less – women attorneys, for instance, earn only 60 cents on the male lawyer’s dollar

The workshop is designed to give women “the insight and tools to recognize your existing skills and seize the opportunities you’re now overlooking.  This will allow you to negotiate better working conditions, higher salaries, more benefits and better prices for your products and services.” 

For more information about Victoria’s workshop, including registration instructions, click here.  And you can read her recent blog post about the workshop, “Closing the Wage Gap Rocking Your World,” here.

This program comes highly recommended for women young and old, professional and nonprofessional.  Negotiation is a critical part of all of our day-to-day lives and anything that can make us better at it is a worthwhile endeavor.  And Vickie and John Tinghitella are recognized and respected authorities on the subject.

In fact, the program is of such practical value that I recommended it to one of my California-based sisters who lives within a reasonable driving distance of Pasadena.

Fourth Circuit Vacates Securities Arbitration Award: Raymond James Financial Services, Inc. v. Bishop

March 2nd, 2010 Arbitrability, Authority of Arbitrators, Awards, Grounds for Vacatur, Securities Arbitration, United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit 1 Comment »

I.  Introduction

Arbitration is not a perfect process for resolving disputes, but neither is court adjudication.  One advantage of court adjudication is a fairly rigorous standard of review:  appellate courts generally review the trial court’s factual findings for clear error and legal conclusions de novo.  By contrast, courts review arbitration awards under the very deferential standards of review prescribed by Sections 10 and 11 of the Federal Arbitration Act.  The trade-off is one of informality, speed and reduced expense for a heightened risk that the decision maker will commit unreviewable legal and factual errors — even some pretty egregious ones.   

But every so often an arbitration award can be so far off the mark that one of the parties is deprived of the benefit of the bargain it made when it agreed to arbitrate.  These are not cases where the arbitrators merely did a shoddy job, but ones where the arbitrators did not do the job the parties asked them to do.  These are the cases that Section 10(a)(4) of the Federal Arbitration Act was designed to address:  ones where “the arbitrators exceeded their powers, or so imperfectly executed them that a mutual, final award on the subject matter was not made.” 

Today we take a brief look at Raymond James Financial Serv., Inc. v. Bishop, ___ F.3d ___, No. 09-1038, slip op. (4th Cir. Feb. 22, 2010), a recent example of one of those rare cases.  And we’ll see how how confusion about the scope of Section 10(a)(4) resulting – quite unintentionally – from the United States Supreme Court decision in Hall Street Assoc., L.L.C. v. Mattel , Inc, 552 U.S. ___, slip op. at __ (March 25, 2008) apparently motivated the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit to decide the case solely on the ground that the arbitrators were not authorized to rule on the claim on which they admittedly based their award.  (See, generally, “Hall Street Meets Pearl Street: Stolt-Nielsen and the Federal Arbitration Act’s New Section 10(a)(4).”)

The Court reached the right result, but its decision is of limited utility in future cases.  For under many broad arbitration agreements and submissions the arbitrators have authority to rule on pretty much any claim that is related to the subject matter of the  parties’ dispute.  Abitrators may have the authority to resolve a claim, but may do so in a way that has not even a barely colorable justification under the law and facts.   

We would have liked to see the Court rule not only on the authority issue, but also on two other grounds relied upon by the district court:  manifest disregard of the law and the award’s failure to “draw its essence” from the parties’ agreements.  As we have said before, we believe that those grounds are statutorily permitted by Section 10(a)(4), and that they provide a useful safety valve for addressing those (thankfully) rare cases where the arbitrators resolve a dispute within the scope of their authority, but do so in a way that completely deprives one of the parties of the benefit of its arbitration agreement.    Continue Reading »