券商试图剥夺您的投资者保护 投资者应受到金融顾问的保护，还是金融顾问应受到投资者的保护？
Brokerage firms want to yank away your investor protections Should investors be protected from financial advisers, or should it be the other way around?
监管机构可能很快就会决定，是否应让本已不公平的竞争环境进一步向散户投资者倾斜。
Regulators may soon decide whether an unlevel playing field should be tilted even more steeply against the little guy.
多年来，仲裁一直是个人投资者寻求追回因券商或金融顾问造成的损失的主要途径。投资者通常败诉。在由金融业监管局（Finra，该机构监管券商业务）运营的最大证券仲裁论坛中，在未以和解结案的案件里，投资者约有四分之三无法获得任何损害赔偿裁决。
For years, arbitration has been the primary way individual investors can seek to recover losses caused by a broker or financial adviser. Investors usually don’t prevail. At the largest securities-arbitration forum, run by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, which oversees the brokerage business, investors fail to win any damage awards in about three out of four cases that don’t close in a settlement.
今年3月，Finra 就“现代化”其仲裁规则公开征求意见。外部分析师和律师预计，拟议变更最快将于年底出台。
This March, Finra requested public comment on “modernizing” its arbitration rules. Outside analysts and attorneys expect proposed changes soon, perhaps by year-end.
监管机构征求意见的问题包括：大型或复杂案件是否应由非 Finra 管理的仲裁论坛审理；惩罚性赔偿是否应受到限制或被排除；以及 Finra 的仲裁小组成员中是否应至少包含一名来自证券行业的人士。
Among the questions the regulator sought comment on: whether large or complex cases should go to arbitration forums not administered by Finra; whether punitive damages should be limited or precluded; and whether Finra’s arbitration panels should include at least one member from the securities industry.
2025年初，一个 Finra 仲裁小组作出裁决，震惊了证券业：位于圣路易斯的券商及投资公司 Stifel 旗下一家子公司被判向声称遭前 Stifel 金融顾问欺诈的投资者支付约1.32亿美元，其中包括惩罚性赔偿。
In early 2025, a Finra arbitration panel stunned the securities industry by ordering a unit of Stifel, the St. Louis-based brokerage and investment firm, to pay approximately $132 million, including punitive damages, to investors who claim to have been defrauded by a former Stifel financial adviser.
Stifel 称该裁决“过高”且“既无事实依据也无法律依据”，向联邦法院提起诉讼质疑小组裁决；双方后来达成了保密和解。
Saying the award was “outsized” and “supported by neither the facts nor the law,” Stifel contested the panel’s decision in federal court; the parties later reached a confidential settlement.
Stifel 拒绝置评，我未能联系到前顾问 Chuck A. Roberts 置评。在 2025 年 7 月的一项单独 Finra 行动中，Roberts 被终身禁止从事证券业务。
Stifel declined to comment, and I was unable to reach the former adviser, Chuck A. Roberts, for comment. In a separate Finra action in July 2025, Roberts was barred from the securities industry.
在致金融业监管局（Finra）关于潜在仲裁改革的意见信中，Stifel写道：“面临涉及[数百万美元]风险敞口索赔的公司，有权获得Finra仲裁体系的非正式性和衡平法基础所不提供的保护。”Finra的使命声明并未提及保护证券公司。相反，该监管机构的使命是“保护投资者并维护我们充满活力的资本市场的完整，以确保每个人都能充满信心地投资”，正如其网站和年报所宣称的那样。
In its comment letter on Finra’s potential arbitration reforms, Stifel wrote: “Firms facing claims involving [multimillion-dollar] exposures are entitled to protections that the informality and equitable underpinnings of Finra’s arbitration scheme do not provide.”Finra’s mission statement says nothing about protecting securities firms. Instead, the regulator’s mission is to “protect investors and safeguard the integrity of our vibrant capital markets to ensure that everyone can invest with confidence,” as its website and annual report proclaim.
“Finra的仲裁论坛旨在为我们的会员公司和投资者提供一种公平、便捷且透明的争议解决途径，”该监管机构在一份声明中表示。
“Finra’s arbitration forum is designed to offer our member firms and investors a fair, accessible and transparent means of resolving disputes,” the regulator said in a statement.
我当然希望Finra在该句中将“我们的会员公司”置于“投资者”之前，是无心之失而非有意为之。
I certainly hope that Finra placed “our member firms” ahead of “investors” in that sentence inadvertently rather than intentionally.
Finra补充称，公众意见“将帮助我们制定具体的规则提案，以便在我们致力于改进[仲裁]论坛、使其在当今市场中更好地为投资者和公司服务的过程中，征求进一步反馈。”与Finra的体系不同，私人争议解决论坛——如美国仲裁协会和JAMS——通常不公开其裁决。它们的费用也可能高达10万美元或更多。允许特定索赔在这些论坛而非Finra成本更低的论坛审理——正如监管机构征求公众意见的问题所设想的那样——将阻碍投资者追回巨额损失，尤其是源于赤裸裸的欺诈或不当行为的损失。
The public comments, Finra added, “will help us produce concrete rule proposals for further feedback as we work to improve the [arbitration] forum to better operate for investors and firms in today’s markets.”Unlike Finra’s system, private dispute-resolution forums—such as the American Arbitration Association and JAMS—generally don’t disclose their decisions. They also can cost $100,000 or more. Permitting selected claims to be heard there instead of in Finra’s cheaper forum—as the regulator’s questions for public comment contemplate—would hamper investors’ ability to recover big losses, especially from flagrant fraud or misconduct.
与陪审团一样，Finra仲裁小组偶尔会判令惩罚性赔偿，金额听起来甚至在一个过度诉讼的社会中也显离谱。然而，惩罚性赔偿极为罕见，在Finra历史上所有导致任何赔偿的客户索赔中，其占比不足3%。而惩罚性赔偿的潜在威慑力，有助于遏制顾问及其公司的无能或不道德行为。
Like juries, Finra arbitration panels can occasionally award punitive damages that sound outlandish even in an overly litigious society. Yet punitive damages are extremely rare, constituting fewer than 3% of all customer claims that have ever resulted in any award at Finra. And the specter of punitive damages helps deter incompetent or unethical behavior by advisers and their firms.
是的，仲裁员可能会随意裁决——但这通常损害的是投资者，而非证券公司。
Yes, arbitrators can be arbitrary—but that typically hurts investors, not securities firms.
据诉讼研究公司Diogenes Group的Thomas Benson统计，在自2015年初以来至少裁决过五起客户纠纷的345名Finra仲裁员中，有49人——即14%——从未作出过有利于投资者的裁决。
According to Thomas Benson of the Diogenes Group, a litigation-research firm, of 345 Finra arbitrators who decided at least five customer disputes since the beginning of 2015, 49—or 14%—never ruled in favor of investors.
2024年8月，数十名投资者针对Charles Schwab的关联公司提起了多起仲裁案件，指控一名以该公司为托管人的顾问对其资金进行了不当管理。投资者声称，他们因投资高风险结构性票据和杠杆交易型开放式指数基金（ETF）而共同损失了数百万美元。
In August 2024, dozens of investors filed several arbitration cases against affiliates of Charles Schwab, alleging that an adviser who used the firm as a custodian had mismanaged their money. The investors claimed they had collectively lost millions of dollars on risky structured notes and leveraged exchange-traded funds.
这名顾问、位于佛罗里达州杰克逊维尔的TOAMS Financial公司的Mario Payne未回应置评请求。“我们对这些投资者表示同情，”Schwab在一份声明中说。“Schwab并未为这些案件中的申请人做出投资决策。我们的角色仅限于保管其账户和处理其交易。”去年9月，一个Finra仲裁小组判决一组Payne的投资者获得440万美元补偿性赔偿，高于他们要求的至少300万美元。
That adviser, Mario Payne of TOAMS Financial in Jacksonville, Fla., didn’t respond to requests for comment. “We empathize with these investors,” Schwab said in a statement. “Schwab did not make investment decisions for the claimants in these matters. Our role was limited to holding their accounts and processing their transactions.”In September, a Finra panel awarded one group of Payne’s investors $4.4 million in compensatory damages, more than their request for at least $3 million.
今年3月，另一组Finra仲裁员判决第二组投资者获得320万美元补偿性赔偿，低于他们寻求的350万美元以上。去年12月，另一个Finra仲裁小组判决第三批Payne的投资者获得零赔偿，尽管他们的案件基于相同的事实模式。
In March, a different set of Finra arbitrators awarded a second group $3.2 million in compensatory damages, less than the $3.5 million-plus they had sought. Last December, another Finra panel awarded nothing to a third batch of Payne’s investors, even though their case was based on the same pattern of facts.
如果你聘用了财务顾问，你可能以为永远不会面临仲裁。自2020年3月触底以来，美国股市实现了22.6%的年化回报，这股财富洪流让亏损显得近乎不可思议。
If you use a financial adviser, you might think you’ll never have to face arbitration. Since its low in March 2020, the U.S. stock market has returned 22.6% annualized, a flood tide of wealth that makes losses seem almost far-fetched.
然而，正如Warren Buffett所警告的：“只有退潮时，才知道谁在裸泳。”漫长的牛市滋生自满情绪，为无能或欺诈提供了掩护。
However, as Warren Buffett has warned, “It’s only when the tide goes out that you learn who’s been swimming naked.”A long bull market breeds complacency, helping to provide cover for incompetence or fraud.
当退潮到来时——它总会到来——你可能会发现，你顾问看似审慎的建议竟然变成了鲁莽之举，或充满了利益冲突。
When the tide goes out, as it always does, you might find that your adviser’s seemingly prudent recommendations turned out to be reckless or rife with conflicts of interest.
到那时，金融业监管局的仲裁将是你挽回损失的最后、也是最好的希望。你理应获得公平听证的机会。
At that point, Finra arbitration would be your last, best hope of recovering losses. You deserve to be able to get a fair hearing.
正如我多年前所写，个人投资者一直“处于食物链的最底端，是漂浮在捕食者海洋中的一粒浮游生物”。监管机构应当做得更多——而不是更少——来保护这些浮游生物。鲨鱼和梭鱼能够保护自己。
As I wrote years ago, the individual investor has always been “at the very bottom of the food chain, a speck of plankton afloat in a sea of predators.”Regulators should be doing more—not less—to protect the plankton. The sharks and barracudas can protect themselves.