According to publicly available information, dually registered broker and investment adviser William Aubrey Morrow (CRD# 836500) has been named or otherwise involved in a total of thirteen customer disputes over the course of his career. Mr. Morrow is a long-time securities professional with 43 years of industry experience. From 2005 until July 2018, Mr. Morrow was employed by Independent Financial Group, LLC, of San Diego, California. Most recently, since August 2018, he has been affiliated with Livonia, Michigan-based Concorde Investment Services, LLC (Concorde).

Mr. Morrow’s disciplinary history in the securities industry has been checkered, totaling thirteen customer disputes. As of the date of this writing, two disputes resulted in customer awards in an aggregate amount exceeding $210,000, and ten awards settled in an aggregate amount of $1.825 million. Many of these settled matters involved various complex and illiquid investment products, including certain limited partnerships, non-traded REITs, as well as tenant-in-common (TIC) programs. One matter alleging damages of $100,000 remains pending, and concerns allegations that a customer’s investments were purportedly “high risk and not in line with their stated objectives and risk tolerance.”

While currently affiliated with Concorde, Mr. Morrow conducts business under his own shingle through an entity known as Financial Designs Limited (Financial Designs). As President of Financial Designs, Mr. Morrow serves as the host of a weekly radio show, The Financial Advisors, with an audience in various Southern California counties including Santa Barbara, Ventura, Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, and San Diego, as well as Tijuana, Mexico.

Applicable FINRA rules mandate that broker-dealers, and by extension their affiliated financial advisors, must perform adequate due diligence on an investment before it is recommended to an investor. Furthermore, a financial advisor must perform a customer-specific suitability analysis in connection with the sale of an investment product to ensure that the investment is appropriate for a specific customer based on certain criteria, including a customer’s age, net worth and income, liquidity needs, experience with investing, as well as their stated investment objectives and risk tolerance.

Moreover, pursuant to FINRA Rule 3110 (NASD Rule 3010), brokerage firms like Concorde must “establish and maintain a system to supervise the activities of each associated person that is reasonably designed to achieve compliance” with applicable FINRA rules, in addition to state and federal securities laws. It is critical for broker-dealers to not only establish such a supervisory system, but further to properly maintain their supervision, by among other things, periodically meeting with individual financial advisors to discuss the products they are selling and their sales methods, as well as to examine correspondence with customers. In instances where a customer suffers losses due to an inappropriate or unsuitable investment (or investment program), then the brokerage firm may be held liable for any failure to adequately supervise their employee.

The attorneys at Giarrusso Law Group LLC have significant experience in working closely with investors to resolve all manner of issues concerning investment losses, including losses suffered due to misconduct or negligence by a broker or financial advisor. Investors may pursue a claim to recover monies through securities arbitration before FINRA, or in some instances, through litigation. Investors who wish to discuss a possible claim are invited to contact us by telephone at (201) 771-1115 or by email at info@gialawgroup.com for a no-cost, confidential consultation.