The Firm allowed a statutorily disqualified person to associate with the firm.
The individual acted in an associated capacity for the firm, with its knowledge and consent, by
The firm initiated numerous telephone solicitations to persons whose numbers were in the national do-not call registry of the Federal Trade Commission (DNC Registry) at the time of the calls.
Tto achieve compliance with telemarketing rules and regulations, the firm used, and still uses, a system that blocks outbound phone calls to phone numbers in the DNC Registry. In order to call a phone number in the DNC Registry from a firm phone line, the firm must manually place the number on a list in the system (Allow List); calls to phone numbers on the Allow List bypass the screening system, irrespective of whether the number is in the DNC Registry. A firm principal added numerous phone numbers to the Allow List; the numbers came from leads that the firm had purchased. In addition, the firm maintained that it thought the leads consisted solely of business phone numbers that are not subject to certain do-not-call restrictions. Moreover, the firm placed calls to phone numbers that it had added to the Allow List; a substantial percentage were personal phone numbers that were in the DNC Registry when the firm initiated telephone solicitations to them.