UBS Financial Services must pay nearly $1.2 million in compensatory damages plus interest to additional clients who alleged the firm's Yield Enhancement Strategy (YES) — which focused on options-based trading — was misrepresented to them and wound up exposing them to risk of loss, according to a recent FINRA arbitration award.
In the statement of claim, B. Terry Bryant and Memorial Rock Investments asserted that UBS was guilty of "violations of state and federal securities laws (securities fraud), fraud; breach of fiduciary duty, negligence, gross negligence, negligent supervision, and breach of contract" regarding the YES options strategy.
This was not the first time that UBS was ordered to pay clients over its YES options-based trading. For example, a three-person arb panel ruled last year that UBS must pay nearly $371,000 in compensatory damages to claimants making similar allegations.
Some other disputes over the same options strategy, however, were decided in favor of UBS over the past couple of years.
UBS declined to comment Monday on the latest FINRA arb panel decision.
"We knew that UBS has prevailed in many of these YES cases, but were confident that our clients had a good case," Lance C. Arney of the Houston law firm Gregor Wynne Arney, who represented the claimants, told ThinkAdvisor by email on Monday. "We are gratified to have received one of the largest awards to date for YES victims," he said.
