Fired Bear Stearns Broker Seeks $30M in Damages

Mark Hurant, a former broker at Bear Stearns, has filed a $30 million arbitration claim with the NASD on the grounds he was wrongfully terminated from the firm in 2003 for facilitating market timing, The Wall Street Journal reports. Half of that claim is for compensatory damages and half is for punitive damages.

Hurant, who joined the company in 1995, says he and seven others on his team landed their first market-timing client in 1998, eventually expanding the practice to 10 clients. Bear Stearns, Hurant says, "facilitated and supported" the activity. But when New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer brought his first charges against mutual fund companies for permitting market timing and late trading, Bear Stearns fired Hurant and the seven other executives.

Meanwhile, the Securities and Exchange Commission is considering bringing an action against Hurant.