Finra bars advisor who focused on special needs

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority Inc. on Thursday barred a financial advisor, Andrew Komarow, whose practice focused on special needs and autism, after he failed to cooperate in a Finra investigation in the wake of being accused by his firm last year of not using electronic transfers of funds properly.

Komarow was featured in InvestmentNews in May 2021 for his focus on understanding special-needs financial planning. His Connecticut-based firm, Planning Across The Spectrum, specializes in the area, with most of the staff being neurodivergent. He was also an InvestmentNews 2021 Diversity, Equity & Inclusion award winner.

Komarow agreed to the settlement without admitting to or denying Finra's findings.

Komarow did not produce information, documents and testimony that Finra wanted as part of its investigation, violating industry rules, according to the settlement.

He was discharged, meaning fired, last November by Private Advisor Group, LPL Financial's largest branch office, after allegedly abusing electronic fund transfer rules, according to his BrokerCheck profile.

According to his BrokerCheck report, Komarow, who was registered with LPL from 2016 to the end of last year in West Hartford, Connecticut, on at least one occasion allegedly initiated an electronic fund transfer into his personal account at a third-party custodian for amounts that were not available in the bank account from which he directed the transfer to be drawn.

He confirmed he knew there were insufficient funds in the bank account at the time he initiated the transfer and then placed trades in his personal account with those funds, thereby creating a debit in the account when the bank did not honor the fund transfer due to insufficient funds.

“The alleged trading activity in the accounts were in his own retail trading accounts, and the allegation had nothing to do with client funds,” said Louis Tambaro, Komarow’s attorney. “He’s been in the industry for 12 years and never had a customer complaint or any disclosures.”

“He was advised to stop communicating with Finra as other investigations proceeded,” Tambaro said. Komarow “is on the autism spectrum and is currently on disability. The stress associated with the Private Advisor Group issues and multiple investigations led him to accept the settlement.”