A similar case involves a pair of former Ameriprise Financial Services reps—Jack Griffith and John Chapman—both based in Columbia, S.C.
Ameriprise Financial, the parent company, is withholding incentive stock from Griffith and Chapman, which was given to them as an incentive for sticking with Ameriprise after it bought their former firm, H&R Block, in 2008.
Under terms of the stock offer, the brokers forfeited the stock if they ever left Ameriprise. Both of them joined Janney Montgomery Scott early last year.
Ameriprise Financial, which is not a Finra member, filed at the AAA to get the stock back.
The brokers want the cases moved to Finra, but last December a federal court in South Carolina denied a motion by Griffith to stay the AAA proceedings.
Griffith “has provided no persuasive authority indicating that the court can and should compel a non-Finra member to arbitrate with Finra,” wrote federal judge Terry Wooten of the U.S. District Court, District of South Carolina, in Columbia.
The Ameriprise brokers’ attorney, Amy LB Hill of Sowell Gray Stepp and Laffitte in Columbia, S.C., declined to comment on the cases, which are still pending at the AAA and Finra.
Ameriprise spokesman Chris Reese also declined to comment.
Finra has taken at least one enforcement action against a broker-dealer for avoiding arbitration of employment disputes.
In 2012, it settled a case with Merrill Lynch for $1 million. The case arose from the firm’s policy of forcing retention-bonus cases into New York state courts.