A Financial Industry Regulatory Authority arbitration panel has allowed a former Merrill Lynch broker to expunge customers' allegations that transfers and purchases of equity indexed and variable annuities he made for them were unsuitable, according to an award filing.
The FINRA arbitrators allowed Brian J. Mariash to have the allegations cleared from his record, stating that the customers "often made spurious complaints and quickly withdrew or dropped them."
The three arbitrators found that the allegations against Mariash, a 24-year industry veteran, were false.
The investors filed the complaint soon after Mariash went to work at UBS Wealth Management in 2023 and was no longer representing them, the award states.
Mariash's BrokerCheck profile shows that the complaint, which said he was not acting in the customers' best interest from Feb., 24, 2020, to Dec. 18, 2023, regarding equity indexed annuities, was denied. The customers "took no further action with regard to their complaints and remained clients" of Mariash, according to the award.
Mariash was named to Forbes "Best-In-State Wealth Advisors" list from 2018 to 2023, according to his bio on the UBS website.
Merrill Lynch declined to comment.
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