Barr wades in to join battle to cripple Finra

investmentnews.com:

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority Inc. is confronting a potential existential challenge in a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C.

Judges presiding over the case have raised serious constitutional concerns regarding Finra’s authority to enforce securities regulations.

To add to the pressure on Finra, William Barr, the former Attorney General under the Trump administration, and Noel Francisco, the former U.S. Solicitor General, have entered the fray, advocating for significant changes to Finra’s role and authority.

In a friend-of-the-court brief submitted Wednesday, Barr and Francisco presented their arguments, aligning themselves against the stance of the Biden administration’s Justice Department, which supports the current structure of Finra.  

The broker-dealer at the center of the battle, Salt Lake City based Alpine Securities Corp, is contending that the Constitution’s appointments and removal requirements apply only to agencies and instrumentalities of the United States, not to a privateparty — such as Finra.

This clash between the Justice Department and two former high-ranking officials underscores the far-reaching implications of the ongoing Finra appeal.

The genesis of this case traces back to broker-dealer Alpine Securities Corp’s efforts to halt an expedited Finra hearing that aimed to boot Alpine from the organization and require it to pay $2.3 million in what it claims are overpaid fees. “Individually, the violations in this case are amongst the most egregious in the securities industry” Finra said at the time

The Justice Department referred to Alpine as “a broker-dealer with a recidivist disciplinary history that has violated Finra’s rules thousands of times over the past year”.

Alpinelaunched