A FINRA Panel has found claims made by Pinnacle Investments, LLC during an arbitration between the firm and respondents Thomas Corcoran, Richard Garber, George Koulouris, Ridgeway & Conger, Inc., Anastasia Tkatschow, John Bianchini, David Kamp, Gregg Kidd, Eric Krouse and Daniel Raite to be lacking in “credible probative or dispositive substance.” Accordingly, FINRA agreed to amend two of the Respondents’ U-5 Forms, as they contained information of a “defamatory nature.”
Pinnacle alleged that the respondents had committed “fraud, defamation, intentional interference with business relations, violation of FINRA Rule 2010, and civil conspiracy.” All of the respondents denied the claims made against them, but two, Tkatschow and Koulouris, requested not only monetary awards, but also that their Form U-5s be expunged.
Ultimately, the Panel dismissed Pinnacle’s claims in their entirety and allowed for Tkatschow and Koulouris to have their U-5s expunged. When discussing its decision to permit Tkatschow’s U-5 to be altered, the Panel stated, “The credibility of Claimant Pinnacle’s allegation against Tkatschow for violation of policies and procedures for not knowing her client was false…” and that “…the testimony of two critical Pinnacle witnesses regarding reasons for the negative comment on Tkatschow’s Form U-5 was contradictory and not deemed credible on the matter.”
Regarding Koulouris’s U-5, the Panel stated, “…the information contained on Respondent Koulouris’s Form U-5 placed there by Claimant Pinnacle is unsupported by a preponderance of the evidence and fails to meet the burden of proof to demonstrate noncompliance with policies and procedures.”
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