Outrageous story.
The facts behind the case between Merrill and the customer are not mentioned here, however it must have been quite obvious for the FINRA arbitrators as their decision overwhelmingly went in favor of the customer, while Merrill apparently saw no possibility to win an appeal. Instead, they worked behind the scenes to stick it to the arbitrators later.
Two other sordid details of the case: The customer committed suicide before the final verdict, probably because Merrill gambled away or stole his life savings. And one of the fired arbitrators now has started a whistleblower suit over FINRA practices, to be decided by the SEC, whose current head Mary Schapiro left her prior post as head of FINRA with an 8 million bonus...
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-08/wall-street-s-captive-arbitrators-strike-again.html
The facts behind the case between Merrill and the customer are not mentioned here, however it must have been quite obvious for the FINRA arbitrators as their decision overwhelmingly went in favor of the customer, while Merrill apparently saw no possibility to win an appeal. Instead, they worked behind the scenes to stick it to the arbitrators later.
Two other sordid details of the case: The customer committed suicide before the final verdict, probably because Merrill gambled away or stole his life savings. And one of the fired arbitrators now has started a whistleblower suit over FINRA practices, to be decided by the SEC, whose current head Mary Schapiro left her prior post as head of FINRA with an 8 million bonus...
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-08/wall-street-s-captive-arbitrators-strike-again.html