October 13, 2021
A veteran New York Metropolis dealer ordered in June to pay his former employer $457,000 in a promissory be aware dispute has taken the weird step of asking a courtroom to overturn the award.
Barney Greengrass, an Aegis Capital Corp.-registered dealer who left J.P. Morgan Securities in 2018, filed a petition on July 13 in New York Superior Court docket claiming that the award was procured “by the undue technique of perjured testimony,” in keeping with the petition. He’s additionally looking for to revive a $13 million counter-claim the panel denied that concerned a big consumer {that a} colleague allegedly poached.
J.P. Morgan in the meantime claims that the submitting is one other authorized ruse that Greengrass is utilizing to keep away from paying again the be aware. In a Sept. 21-filed memorandum, the financial institution stated the dealer has made “each effort” to keep away from repaying the be aware since his resignation and claimed that he now seeks to have a courtroom vacate the award “just because he’s dissatisfied with the result” of the arbitration.
A full three-person panel of Finra arbitrators on June 15 denied Greengrass’ “unjust enrichment” declare during which he accused one other J.P. Morgan worker of pushing his most profitable retail consumer, a hedge fund buyer, into the agency’s institutional enterprise. The 2 non-industry panelists additionally dominated in favor of J.P. Morgan’s counterclaim for an excellent be aware steadiness, ordering Greengrass to repay greater than $457,000 plus curiosity.
Greengrass’ argument centered on the allegation that Dan Antonelli, head of worldwide fairness gross sales at J.P. Morgan Securities in March of 2016 stole his largest consumer, Stuart Zimmer, a principal of hedge fund Zimmer Companions. Greengrass and his New York-based lawyer, Ethan A. Brecher, had stated the agency additionally denied him a possibility to co-cover the account regardless of the consumer’s needs.
A memorandum Greengrass filed in help of his movement to vacate leans on the argument that Zimmer “forcefully and repeatedly” testified that he had not authorized the switch of his account away from Greengrass. Greengrass stated Antonelli falsely testified that J.P. Morgan Securities doesn’t attempt to persuade or poach enterprise from different components of the financial institution and that there was “not an opportunity” that the switch might have occurred with out Zimmer’s “approval and acquiescence.”
“We ended up with a really opposed consequence in arbitration, however Zimmer was clear and unequivocal in contradicting J.P. Morgan’s head of institutional gross sales,” Brecher stated in an interview. “Antonelli testified that Zimmer had requested for Barney to be taken off the account, however Zimmer testified he didn’t need Barney taken off the account. He was pleased with Barney.”
A J.P. Morgan Spokeswoman declined to remark past the submitting.
Greengrass can also be looking for to undo the award on procedural grounds that J.P. Morgan Securities lacked standing to carry a declare for breach of the be aware because it had been issued by a special enterprise unit, JPMorgan Chase.
Motions to vacate are uncommon as a result of courts are extremely deferential to arbitrator rulings and have solely 4 restricted grounds to overturn an award beneath the Federal Arbitration Act, legal professionals say.
However on this case, one of many Finra panelists, an {industry} arbitrator, had dissented particularly on the portion of the award coping with the be aware compensation, agreeing with Greengrass’ place that J.P. Morgan lacked the “standing to say the declare on the promissory be aware.”
Greengrass, who can also be a scion of the founding father of the well-known Jewish deli of the identical identify on Manhattan’s Higher West Aspect, has 40 years within the {industry} and a profession spanning seven corporations. The notes dispute with J.P. Morgan isn’t his first.
In 2013, he and Brecher had been profitable in keeping off a $1.1 million lawsuit from Morgan Stanley, looking for compensation of notes after Greengrass’ transfer in 2010 to J.P. Morgan Securities.
The wirehouse had claimed Greengrass owed roughly $940,550 plus curiosity as a result of he left the agency earlier than fulfilling the phrases of his 2005 signing bonus. Greengrass countered, saying the agency didn’t make good on a promise that his giant institutional accounts could be supplied with the identical preferential margin rates of interest and margin collateral ranges they loved whereas at Smith Barney, his former employer.