Enforcement Actions
Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA)
CASES OF NOTE
2009
NOTE: Stipulations of Fact and Consent to Penalty (SFC); Offers of Settlement (OS); and Letters of Acceptance Waiver, and Consent (AWC) are entered into by Respondents without admitting or denying the allegations, but consent is given to the described sanctions & to the entry of findings. Additionally, for AWCs, if FINRA has reason to believe a violation has occurred and the member or associated person does not dispute the violation, FINRA may prepare and request that the member or associated person execute a letter accepting a finding of violation, consenting to the imposition of sanctions, and agreeing to waive such member's or associated person's right to a hearing before a hearing panel, and any right of appeal to the National Adjudicatory Council, the SEC, and the courts, or to otherwise challenge the validity of the letter, if the letter is accepted. The letter shall describe the act or practice engaged in or omitted, the rule, regulation, or statutory provision violated, and the sanction or sanctions to be imposed.
Donald Walter Kiley
OS/2005003312401
Kiley received $20,382.07 in compensation for participating in the sale of life settlements totaling $160,601.24, and failed to give prior written notice to, or receive prior written approval from, his member firm. The compliance manual for Kiley’s member firm explicitly prohibited the sale of viatical and life settlements. 
Donald Walter Kiley: Fined $5,000; Suspended 3 months
Bill Singer's Comment
Can you imagine that?  The compliance manual explicitly (not just plain-old but EXPLICITLY) prohibited viatical and life settlement sales. Despite that prohibition, Kiley sold life settlements. I don't know about you, but I was flabbergasted to read that someone could actually sell something even though it's not permitted on a piece of paper. (Yeah, I'm being a sarcastic bastard, in case the nuance was lost on you).

Here's my question: Any of these high-placed regulator types ever think that maybe we should set up a national data bank in which we monitor all financial services transactions and require fingerprints and social security numbers for all salesperson (oh, yeah, I forgot -- we already do require that stuff...okay, sorry again, just me being incredibly sarcastic).  So, you know, like maybe any time a Donald Walter Kiley is the salesperson for a stock, bond, commodity, insurance policy, mortgage, his name could be cross-referenced by computer to see if his legally qualified to engage in such sales and that same amazing computer could generate form letters to notify all of his current employers as to his varied sales activities -- you know, just in case a brokerage firm might want to know that its written procedures were being violated?  What's the point of all these rules and regulations if they are only enforced in the breach?  

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