Erwin Shustak, Shustak Reynolds & Partners, P.C., just returned from attending the London annual conference of International-Referral, a world-wide organization of attorneys and other professionals from over 140 jurisdictions spanning more than 70 practice areas.
Erwin is on the Steering Committee of the Disputes Committee of the organization.
“My first response was to sue her for defamation of character,
but then I realized I have no character.”
Charles Barkley
The Uniform Termination Notice for Securities Industries Registration (Form U5) includes all customer complaints, securities licenses, registrations, and amendments. Whether you are a financial or investment advisor, a securities broker, or a registered financial representative, when someone has a U5 defamation claim, you need the assistance of a firm that can represent your interests.
If your former brokerage firm files a Form U5 on you, the information that they share becomes a matter of permanent record. In most cases, getting your Form U5 requires an arbitration proceeding through FINRA.
While Charles Barkley’s quip may be humorous as a self-deprecating witticism, when a defamation claim is filed against you it can have legitimate long-term affects on your career.
Form U5’s filed on terminated employees end up at the Central Registration Depository (CRD). From there your Form U5 could be accessed by potential securities industry employers. In addition to your CRD file, some of the information your former employer claimed about you may be exposed to the public via FINRA’s BrokerCheck system.
What happens when a firm or broker-dealer’s U5 reports contain defamatory information about you? Certainly a falsified or misleading U5 can cause damage to your reputation and affect keep you from future opportunities in your industry.
If you have been the victim of a false, misleading, or defamatory Form U5 filing, we can help you petition to have the erroneous language removed or changed. In addition, if defamation is a legitimate claim, we may be able to help you pursue money damages for potential loss of wages.
While our past success does not guarantee future victories, you would know Shustak Reynolds & Partners’ results include one of the largest libel jury verdicts ever awarded in New York.
The seasoned and proficient team at Shustak Reynolds & Partners, P.C. have extensive experience with U-4 and U-5 CRD defamation and expungement law. Let us help your registered investment representatives keep their CRDs while clearing records of customer complaints and other negative reports. Contact our attorneys today to get started.
A business that is proactive in the manner in which it addresses potential issues typically is an enterprise that enjoys a higher level of success, including in the arena of employee satisfaction, client or customer relations and overall fiscal health. When it comes to human resources, preventive counseling proves to be highly beneficial in addressing, minimizing and even preventing certain types of employment issues in the workplace.
The reality is that preventive counseling takes a variety of different forms. In addition, by construction, preventive counseling is designed to address a myriad of issues that have the potential of negatively impacting the workplace in one way or another. These issues include, but are not limited to, work-related stress to a family death to a health issue to substance abuse.
Preventive counseling plays a fundamental role in maintaining overall workplace productivity. When an employee faces one or another issue that impacts his or her own productivity, that downgrading in effectiveness tends to infectious. When one employee is not able to perform to par, that degradation impacts the ability of co-workers to undertake their own responsibilities at a peak performance. Preventive counseling is capable of providing a type of intervention that not only helps in preventing a decline in effectiveness of the specific employee with an issue but in further spreading declining productivity throughout the workforce team.
When an employee faces some sort of issue that has the potential to negatively impact his or her job duties and performance, a residual impact is a threat to that individual’s overall sense of job satisfaction. Job dissatisfaction impacts everything from productivity to attendance and many other elements of employment in between.
Preventive counseling is proven effective at staving off the possibility of some sort of issue having a significant impact on a person’s overall job satisfaction. Indeed, through this type of counseling and depending on the underlying negative issue, the workplace can become a positive refuge or element in a worker’s overall existence.
One of the most fundamental way sin which preventive counseling aids in addressing employment issues in the workplace center on the broader concept of team building. A business with multiple employees necessarily must develop some sort of team-like cohesiveness. Another reality is that when a member of that business team faces some sort of issue or dilemma, the impact on the workplace can be a negative impact on the otherwise relatively cohesive team of workers. Contact our attorneys today to get started.
Patents serve a crucial role in our economy, granting inventors the exclusive use of whatever innovations they have patented. Patents are designed to reward the discovery of useful products and ideas so as to encourage and reward creativity. When someone infringes on your patent, that is a very serious matter with potentially major financial and legal consequences.
There is no agency that serves as a “patent police,” which means that the monitoring and protection of your patent rights are something you will have to take responsibility for. Your primary goal is to get the infringer to stop and then pay you any money you are owed. It is likely that the infringer will argue that they have not infringed on your patent, so you should put together a claim chart listing all the incidents in which you believe there have been violations. Such a list also helps you identify weaknesses in your patent that you can fix in continuing patent claims.
Merely stopping someone from infringing on your patent is not always enough. Sometimes, you will feel you deserve financial compensation as well, especially if the infringer made money by using your patent. First, you will want to determine whether the infringer has sufficient funds to pay you, as there no sense in pursuing legal action against someone who has no money to begin with. If there is compensation to be had, develop a case showing how you have been hurt by the infringement. These justifications could include lost sales, inability to sell the product at a higher price due to unfair competition, inability to grow the company due to lost sales, and loss of the product development money used to create whatever was patented.
On some occasions, especially if the patent infringement is minor, it may be possible to resolve the issues without having to involve the courts. However, when co-operative efforts fail, it is essential that you immediately take action with the help of a legal professional with a background in trademark and copyright law. Patent cases can be complex and require the attention of someone who understands the details of the law. Shustak Reynolds & Partners, P.C. is one firm that is fully qualified to handle cases where patents, trademarks and property rights are at stake. With good legal representation, your patent, your business and your rights can be protected. Contact us today to learn more.