FINRA fined and barred Corey Andrew White for failing to adequately supervise trading activities at Financial West Group in Westlake Village, where he served as Chief Compliance Officer. The findings state White failed to respond to red flags at the firm's Brentwood, California branch regarding excessive trading and unsuitable recommendations involving non-traditional exchange traded products (ETPs), low-priced securities, and options.
According to AWC #2017054755209, Corey White (CRD #4537015) failed to discharge his supervision duties as specified in Financial West Group's written supervisory procedures, explaining the failure to investigate irregularities and review exception reports to detect potential sales practice abuses as "there were too many to review."
FINRA wrote that White failed to respond to red flags indicating unsuitable and excessive trading in customer accounts at Financial West Group's Brentwood office, including red flags that indicated these customer accounts were engaged in a pattern of buying and selling the same security multiple times over a short period, which ordinarily indicates excessive trading.
Insofar as unsuitable ETPs are concerned, a firm representative recommended that a customer with conservative investment objectives purchase a double-leveraged non-traditional ETP—a complex product ordinarily unsuitable for such a client. The report states that even though the record indicated that this customer held such a complex product for more than one trading session, which itself is unsuitable, and that White knew about this, he nonetheless failed to investigate it.
White also purportedly failed to monitor and approve 370 options transactions executed in a low-risk-tolerant customer's account.
Since 2017, White has been registered with Western International Securities in Pasadena, CA, as both a broker and investment adviser.
If you invested with Corey Andrew White, formerly the Chief Compliance Officer at Financial West Group, or with any broker or financial adviser who unsuitably recommended you purchase complex products such as inverse/leveraged ETPs or other securities whose risk exposure run contrary to your risk tolerance preferences and investment objectives, and these inappropriate transactions have proven harmful to your interests, please call an experienced FINRA arbitration attorney at The Law Offices of Jonathan W. Evans & Associates at (800) 699-1881 for an investigation and consultation.