William Nicholas Athas Complaint Filed

The following complaint was issued in the FINRA Disciplinary Report from March of 2022. FINRA states that the issuance of a disciplinary complaint represents FINRA’s initiation of a formal proceeding in which findings as to the allegations in the complaint have not been made, and does not represent a decision as to any of the allegations contained in the complaint.
William Nicholas Athas (CRD #3165470, Manorville, New York)
On January 18, 2022, William Nicholas Athas was named a respondent in a FINRA complaint alleging that he churned customer accounts.
FINRA’s complaint alleges that William Nicholas Athas controlled the trading in the customer accounts, the volume and frequency of trading, decided what securities to buy and sell, the quantity of each transaction and the timing of each transaction. Athas also, according to FINRA, determined the commission he would charge for each transaction.
According to the FINRA report, the customers routinely followed Athas’ recommendations. FINRA alleges that William Nicholas Athas deliberately incurred unreasonably high trading costs in these customers’ accounts, which made it nearly impossible for the accounts to be profitable. Athas continued trading activity even after allegedly being warned about the excessive level of trading and high costs in these customer accounts on several occasions.
The FINRA complaint also alleges that Athas’ trading in these accounts was excessive and unsuitable for each of the customers based on their investment profiles, as evidenced by the high turnover rates and cost-to-equity ratios, the frequency of the transactions and the transaction costs incurred. FINRA alleges Athas’ churning and excessive trading caused the customers to pay approximately $1.6 million in commissions and other trading costs and to suffer approximately $1.1 million in losses. William Nicholas Athas generated commissions of approximately $1.5 million for himself and his member firms.
The complaint further alleges that Athas recommended that customers engage in short-term, in-and-out trading, often on margin, without having a reasonable basis to recommend that trading strategy to the customers. Accordiing to the complaint, Athas allegedly failed to perform reasonable diligence.
FINRA alleged that Athas also failed to understand turnover rates and cost-to-equity ratios, and therefore failed to calculate and consider these metrics when recommending and executing a short-term, in-and-out trading strategy in his customers’ accounts.
(FINRA Case #2018057883102)
According to FINRA’s BrokerCheck, William Nicholas Athas has been in the securities industry for 22 years and has 11 disclosures on his FINRA CRD report, of which 9 are Customer Disputes.
William Nicholas Athas was listed with13 firms, with the most recent listed below:
08/24/2020 - 12/22/2021  SW FINANCIAL  -  MELVILLE, NY
07/21/2016 - 08/25/2020   WORDEN CAPITAL MANAGEMENT LLC - MELVILLE, NY
If you or a family member have experienced financial losses due to the actions or recommendations of William Nicholas Athas, contact Soreide Law Group and speak to an experienced securities lawyer at no cost regarding the possible recovery of your investment losses through a FINRA arbitration at:  888-760-6552.
Soreide Law Group works on a contingency fee and represents our clients nationwide before FINRA.