The US Financial Regulatory Authority has barred broker Bruce Martin Zipper of Miami from conducting business for three months and has also expelled his firm, Dakota Securities, from FINRA membership for not supervising him adequately.

While failing to supervise Zipper the firm, according to FINRA, also allowed him to remain associated with it while he was suspended (and later while he was statutorily disqualified) and falsified books and records. The decision resolves charges that FINRA pressed in November.

In April 2016, Zipper signed a settlement with FINRA by which he agreed to pay a US$5,000 fine and be suspended from business for three months for failing to disclose three outstanding judgments. At the time, Zipper was a principal at Dakota Securities, a small broker-dealer that operated as a “one man shop” where Zipper wore “all the hats.” After agreeing to the settlement, Zipper notified FINRA that he was bringing another broker into his firm to conduct something that FINRA calls "firm business" while he was suspended. However, after his suspension started in May 2016, Zipper never stopped being associated with Dakota and kept on talking to Dakota customers, doing business with the firm’s clearing broker, and generally operating the firm.

In its disciplinary complaint, FINRA charged Zipper with breaking his settlement agreement and his firm with the aforementioned offences, concluding: “We find that there is no question that Zipper violated his suspension by associating with Dakota in breach of his settlement.” It noted that during the suspension, Zipper regularly communicated with Dakota’s clearing firm and vendors regarding the firm’s ongoing operations, and with several of the firm's customers so that they could look at the firm’s website, their brokerage statements and other records that included Zipper’s own investment analyses and recommendations that led to purchases of securities. During the latter part of his suspension in August 2016, Zipper personally negotiated a settlement in an arbitration case against Dakota.