Wachovia Ordered to Pay Fired Broker $3.8 Million

An NASD arbitration panel has ordered Wachovia to pay a broker it fired three years ago over market timing allegations $3.8 million.

The brokerage firm fired Frederick J. O’Meally on Sept. 29, 2003, the same month that New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer launched his investigation into market timing and late trading of mutual funds by hedge funds. O’Meally had worked at Wachovia as a broker for a number of hedge funds for four years.

“I have lived under a cloud for three years, and now that cloud has lifted,” O’Meally said in a statement. “Today’s award proves what I have always known—that Wachovia had no cause to fire me for any reason.”

The arbitration panel did not, however, grant O’Meally’s application for wrongful termination, libel, slander or punitive damages, and he still faces civil fraud charges for market timing by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

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