FINRA Expertise
DO&CB lawyers have had extensive experience representing life insurance companies for over twenty years. In doing so, we have acquired extensive knowledge of insurance products, life and annuity contracts with and without variable features or other securities components, employee benefits plan design, and associated legal and financial requirements. In addition, while employed as in-house counsel, several firm lawyers defended sales practices related putative class actions and individual opt-out and lawsuits involving variable and nonvariable life and annuity products. Many of these cases involved alleged misrepresentations relating to “vanishing premiums,” assertions that products were not suitable for the customers, or theories that unauthorized promissory notes were used in connection with the sale process.
Firm lawyers have handled arbitrations and mediations involving variable life and annuity products before the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) and the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD). DO&CB lawyers work with the firm’s securities product law specialists to handle these matters with our streamlined dispute resolution processes in an expeditious and cost-efficient manner. Many of the arbitrations handled by firm lawyers have involved alleged suitability and pricing representation issues for variable life and annuity products. Some of the arbitrations involved allegations of “selling away” by registered representatives of unauthorized products such as questionable promissory notes.