We reported in SAA 2020-48 (Dec. 24) that the SEC on December 17 approved Notice of Filing of a Proposed Rule Change to Amend the FINRA Codes of Arbitration Procedure to Increase Arbitrator Chairperson Honoraria and Certain Arbitration Fees (SR-FINRA-2020-035).
We later reported in SAA 2021-01 (Jan. 14) that the Approval Order was published in the Federal Register on December 23 (Vol. 85, No. 247, P. 84053). We said in #01: “Next is publication of a FINRA Regulatory Notice setting the effective date.” We can now report that this occurred on February 12 with FINRA’s publication of Regulatory Notice 21-04. What are the specifics? The Notice states: “FINRA has amended its Codes of Arbitration Procedure for Customer and Industry Disputes (Codes) to: (1) increase the additional hearing-day honorarium chairs receive for each hearing on the merits from $125 to $250 and (2) create a new $125 chair honorarium for each prehearing conference in which the chair participates. To fund the increase in payments to chairs, the amendments make minimal increases to certain arbitration fees” (footnote omitted). The increases are effective for cases filed on or after April 19, 2021.
(ed: *As we’ve said before, this is really good news. $850 a day – $600 for two hearing sessions plus $250 – is decent compensation, and the “extra” for IPHCs is fair. **We had guessed that effectiveness might be for “hearings held” versus “cases filed” but we got that wrong.)
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