On October 20, the National Adjudicatory Council (NAC) of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) revised the Principal Considerations in Determining Sanctions section of the FINRA Sanction Guidelines to expressly contemplate a customer’s age or physical or mental impairment. In connection therewith, FINRA released Regulatory Notice 20-37.

The prior version of the FINRA’s Sanction Guidelines contained 19 Principal Considerations in Determining Sanctions that adjudicators were instructed to consider. As amended, the Sanction Guidelines now contains 20 Principal Considerations.

FINRA specified that the amendments reflect NAC’s overall concerns regarding the protection of customers, especially senior investors or mentally impaired customers. In furtherance of those concerns, FINRA amended Principal Consideration No. 19 to explicitly include customers’ mental or physical impairment. Additionally, FINRA introduced a new Principal Consideration No. 20 to consider whether the customer is age 65 and older.

The amendments to the Sanction Guidelines are effective immediately.

The notice is available here. The revised Sanction Guidelines are available here.