Item: Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP
Rating: 5
Author: M.B.

Edward Jones & Co

Edwards Jones is a financial services firm that works with individual investors and small businesses all over the United States and Canada. Headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri. It has more than 13,400 locations and is a subsidiary of Edward Jones Financial Companies, LLLP.

There are over 16,000 Edward Jones stockbrokers. Under the broker-dealer’s business model, its financial advisors offer products that are fee and commission-based. Serving nearly 8 million clients and with $1 trillion in assets under management (AUM), Edward Jones is licensed as a broker-dealer by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) and is a registered investment adviser with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

At Shepherd Smith Edwards and Kantas (SSEK Law Firm at investorlawyers.com), our broker fraud lawyers work with investors throughout the United States who have lost money because of the negligent or fraudulent actions of Edward Jones registered representatives. If you believe you may be one of these customers, contact SSEK Law Firm today.

Arbitration Claims Against Edward Jones Include Supervisory Failures, Misappropriation, Amongst Others

According to BrokerCheck, Edward Jones has been the subject of 73 regulatory events, 2 civil events, and 148 arbitration claims including:

2004: Edward Jones paid a $75 million fine over allegations that it failed to adequately disclose its revenue-sharing agreement with certain mutual fund families over investments it had recommended to customers. The regulatory case was brought by the SEC, the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), and the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD). As part of the settlement, the broker-dealer agreed to disclose these payments, as well as an acknowledgment that the agreement created a conflict of interest, on its website.
2009: Edward Jones was fined $900K by FINRA related to municipal bonds. The self-regulatory authority (SRO) found that the firm didn’t deliver official statements to new customers in a timely manner. It also noted recordkeeping and supervisory failures.
2010: The Montana Securities Department ordered Edward Jones to pay a $100K fine after one of its brokers allegedly misappropriated customer monies. The broker-dealer also paid six customers that were harmed nearly $350K in restitution.
2015: The SEC ordered Edward Jones to pay a $20M for purportedly overcharging retail customers at least $4.6 related to municipal bond underwriting. $5.2M of the fine was disgorgement and prejudgment interest.
2015: Edward Jones was ordered by FINRA to pay $13.5M in restitution for not waiving mutual fund sales charges for the retirement accounts and charitable organizations that qualified for the exception.
2019: After a judge dismissed their class-action lawsuit, Edward Jones customers revived their case accusing the firm of engaging in an alleged reverse churning scam. The claimants contend that the firm improperly moved customers out of brokerage accounts that were commission-based to ones that were fee-based. The complaint notes that from 2013 to 2017, Edward Jones made $17.2B in asset-based fees through its Advisory Solutions platform, while its executives reportedly earned more than $277M. The plaintiffs believe the transfers to the fee-based accounts were so that the firm could make more commissions.
2020: An appeals court upheld a $3.2M class action settlement. The lawsuit accuses Edward Jones of cherry-picking investment funds according to whether it had a relationship with the providers of the funds.

Filing a FINRA Arbitration Claim Against Edward Jones

If you are an Edward Jones customer and you suspect that your broker or investment advisor caused your losses by making an unsuitable recommendation, engaging in misrepresentations and omissions, overconcentrating or excessively trading in your account, making unauthorized trades, misappropriating your funds, or was negligent in some way, you may be able to recover damages from the firm.

Even when a state or federal regulator gets involved, your best bet for maximizing your recovery is to get your own securities fraud lawyer and filing an individual claim through FINRA arbitration.

Even if the broker-dealer firm was not directly involved in or aware of your broker’s negligent or fraudulent actions, you may still be able to hold the firm liable for their registered representative’s actions, including its failure to properly supervise this individual and neglecting to identify red flags that could have prevented your losses.

To schedule your free, no-obligation case consultation, call SSEK Law Firm at 800-259-9010 or contact us online.

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