PIABA President Brian Smiley speaks about arbitration and investor protection. Brian Smiley, a partner in the Atlanta law firm Smiley Bishop & Porter LLP, also serves as the president of the PIABA, which promotes the interests of investors involved in arbitration disputes against brokerage firms. He spoke to Judith Schoolman about his group’s goals and […]
Brian Smiley Completes Successful Term as PIABA President
Brian Smiley completed his term as president of the Public Investors Arbitration Bar Association (PIABA). With over 450 members nationally, PIABA is the only bar association dedicated to advocacy on behalf of investors who bring claims in arbitration. During Mr. Smiley’s term, PIABA initiated a number of significant reform measures to the arbitration process.
Will You Finally Be Able to Sue Your Broker?
Brian Smiley comments in Smart Money on investor choices. In this great litigious nation, you can sue just about anyone – your doctor, your mechanic, even your dog walker. Just not your stockbroker. Angry brokerage customers – and these days, there are plenty of them – have long been forced to take their complaints before […]
Brian Smiley Speaks At the Practicing Law Institute
Brian Smiley appeared on the Practicing Law Institute’s program “Securities Arbitration in the Market Meltdown Era” held on August 12, 2009. He was a speaker on two panel discussions concerning arbitration practices.
Securities Arbitration Is Faulted
Brian Smiley comments in Wall Street Journal on PIABA’s petition to the SEC. Attorneys who represent investors have asked the Securities and Exchange Commission to drop a requirement that a securities-industry representative sit on arbitration panels.
Arbitration Tilting More Against Investors
Bloomberg quotes Brian Smiley about ‘institutional misconduct’ on Wall Street. Let’s say you had $50,000 in auction- rate securities that your broker said were as safe as money- market funds. The market collapsed and you sold at an 80 percent haircut. At your arbitration hearing, one of the three panel members works at a firm that also […]
CWA Retiree’s Investment Nightmare A Cautionary Tale for Members Taking Lump Sum Pensions
Brian Smiley mentioned in Communications Workers of America Like many CWA members, Gwen Sims had a lump sum pension option, and she chose the cash payout instead of a monthly pension benefit when she retired from Bell South in 2000 at age 50.
Client Wins First Round Against Brokerage
Atlanta Business Chronicle reports on a punitive damage award for a factory worker. The arbitration panel that heard the first of about 75 cases against the Augusta office of the brokerage firm A.G. Edwards & Sons Inc. has awarded the former client in the case nearly $1 million.
Josephthal Lyon, Ex-Broker Ordered To Pay $2 Million
Wall Street Journal reports on a multi-million dollar award for client arbitration represented by Brian Smiley. Josephthal Lyon & Ross and one of its former brokers must pay nearly $2 million in an arbitration case that alleged the former broker steered an investor to risky private-company investments without spelling out the risks.
