Starting July 5, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority will reopen 62 of its 69 Dispute Resolution Services hearing locations for in-person arbitration and mediation proceedings, FINRA disclosed Monday in an update on its website.
FINRA started postponing in-person arbitration when the COVID-19 pandemic started in March last year. In April 2020, FINRA said it was extending the postponement of all in-person arbitration and mediation proceedings through July 3 last year due to the pandemic. Proceedings started to be held by Zoom or teleconference, but both parties have had to agree to such a meeting or it has had to be ordered by a FINRA arbitration panel. The postponement was later extended into July 2021.
The first FINRA arbitration award to involve a Zoom hearing was the $11.4 million award that a three-person FINRA Office of Dispute Resolution panel ordered B. Riley Financial subsidiary Wunderlich Securities to pay to New York-based investment firm Dominick & Dickerman and one of its executives, who were the claimants in an arbitration last year.
The only FINRA DRS hearing locations that won't open July 5 are in Augusta, Maine; Boca Raton, Florida; Buffalo, New York; Detroit; Philadelphia; Providence, Rhode Island; and Wilmington, Delaware, FINRA said. FINRA DRS postponed all in-person proceedings at those seven locations through July 30.
