New York Securities Lawyer Blog
On August 31, 2020, the Massachusetts Superior Court confirmed a Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (“FINRA”) Arbitration Award against Credit Suisse for more than $2 million owed to four former Credit Suisse advisors represented by Lax & Neville LLP, including approximately $1.6 million in unlawfully withheld deferred compensation, more than $83,000 in costs and more than $411,000 in attorneys’ fees.
The former Credit Suisse advisors sued Credit Suisse for, among other things, violations of the Massachusetts Wage Act, breach of contract, breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing and unjust enrichment after it closed its U.S. wealth management business on October 20, 2015 and unlawfully cancelled their earned deferred compensation. On February 14, 2020, a three-member FINRA Arbitration Panel found for the advisers and ordered Credit Suisse to pay compensatory damages totaling $1,602,609.95 plus costs, interest and attorneys’ fees.
Credit Suisse petitioned the Court to vacate in part or modify the Award, challenging the Panel’s authority to award attorneys’ fees on the basis that the advisors had no contractual right to attorneys’ fees and that Credit Suisse did not agree to submit the issue of attorneys’ fees to the Panel. In rejecting Credit Suisse’s petition and refusing to modify or vacate the Award, the Court held that Credit Suisse itself had originally submitted a request for attorneys’ fees against its four former advisers, giving the Panel the authority it needed to award attorneys’ fees. Under New York law, which governed the parties’ agreements, a mutual request for attorneys’ fees forms a binding contract between the parties and authorizes a Panel to award attorneys’ fees. The Court further noted that given Credit Suisse’s many losses in the Credit Suisse Deferred Compensation Arbitrations, its surprise at, and defense to, the Panel’s award of attorneys’ fees when both parties had requested them was unreasonable, stating that the “theory should have come as no surprise to Credit Suisse, which had already been required to pay the attorney’s [sic] fee of the prevailing party in another arbitration,” referencing the $585,307 in compensatory damages, $131,694 in interest and $146,326 in attorneys’ fees awarded to Brian Chilton, another former Credit Suisse financial advisor represented by Lax & Neville LLP. Another $1.34 million in attorneys’ fees were also awarded to former Credit Suisse advisors Joseph Lerner and Anna Winderbaum and Richard DellaRusso and Mark Sullivan, all of whom were represented by Lax & Neville LLP, as well as Christian Cram, Andrew Firstman and Mark Horncastle.
Credit Suisse has now been ordered to pay deferred compensation that it indisputably owed to investment advisors whom it indisputably terminated by twenty FINRA arbitrators, three justices of the Commercial Division of the New York Supreme Court, three justices of the New York Appellate Division, seven justices of the New York Court of Appeals and now one justice of the Massachusetts Superior Court.
Lax & Neville LLP has won nearly $15 million in compensatory damages, liquidated damages, interest, costs and attorneys’ fees on behalf of former Credit Suisse advisors. To discuss these FINRA Arbitration Awards or court decisions, please contact Barry R. Lax, Brian J. Neville, Sandra P. Lahens, or Robert R. Miller at (212) 696-1999.