Hooray For SIFMA! Sanity In The News.
The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA), the securities industry's trade group, has been remarkably silent in the arbitration abolition wars. First, the distorted report from Daniel Solin and Edward O'Neal came out which said arbitration was unfair, simply based upon won/loss rates. Then the Feingold-Johnson bill is proposed - to ban all "consumer" arbitrations. Even PIABA, the trade group for securities claimants' lawyers, came out against arbitration and, separately, proposed removing the industry panelist from all arbitration panels.
In a recent article from The Investment News, SIFMA is described as fighting back. Of course, the naysayers will portray SIFMA's study as self-interested, but noone seemed to accuse Mr. Solin or PIABA of the same self-interest. But I digress.
A review of the SIFMA study shows that a lot of thought went into debunking the horse-droppings that were left behind by the Solin study. SIFMA correctly points out the number of garbage cases that were filed by people who were incapable of accepting that the market simply went down. This is not to say that every case was garbage, but my own experience was that there were a lot of people who wanted to take the risk and that ultimately led to their financial distress.
Read the report. It provides the other side of a coin that was not previously turned over. Now, I'm sure, the battle heads for Congress. Long live arbitration!
That's the view from The Law Planet - Jupiter, Florida.
