A fired Raymond James & Associates advisor was ordered by a Finra arbitration panel to repay about  $2 million in loans and bonuses he received from the firm when he was hired.

The three-member Financial Industry Regulatory Authority panel also ruled on Friday that Robert Franden, who worked in Raymond James’s Tulsa, Okla., office, must pay $75,425 in attorneys’ fees. The $2 million represented the unamortized balance of his bonus agreement at the time he was fired, according to Raymond James.

Raymond James and its attorney, Peter S. Fruin of Maynard Nexsen PC in Birmingham, Ala., did not reply to a request for comment.

Franden, who was hired by Raymond James in June 2018 and dismissed in December 2022, was accused of breaching the terms of a loan and related bonus agreement contract he allegedly entered when he started with the firm.

Franden was discharged “after allegations relating to individual's failure to report a civil action and default judgment; conduct of an undisclosed loan to a former firm associate, and lack of candor when questioned regarding both," according to BrokerCheck.

Franden, in a counterclaim he filed in April 2023 that was withdrawn in August, accused Raymond James of firing him with “the ulterior motive to capture and retain the assets under his management and to tarnish his reputation in the industry.”

In the counterclaim, Franden denied that he owed Raymond James anything and requested that he be awarded $2.2 million for causes including defamation/libel, fraudulent inducement, and fraud/negligent misrepresentation. At the same time Franden withdrew his counterclaim, his attorney, who is not named in the award document, also left the case, according to Finra.

Because Franden withdrew his counterclaim and did not show up for the evidentiary hearing, the panel said in its order that it made no determination on his requests for relief and was forced to deny them.

Franden, who had been with Morgan Stanley for nearly 15 years before joining Raymond James, could not be reached for comment.

He began his career 1993 with Merrill Lynch and moved to Citigroup Global Markets in 1998 before joining Morgan Stanley in 2003 and Raymond James in 2018, according to BrokerCheck.