The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority’s reforms to the expungement process appear to have slowed both the pace and success rate for brokers’ efforts to scrub customer disputes from their records, although arbitrators still grant most requests.
Since the reforms took effect in October 2023, brokers have prevailed around two-thirds of the time, according to Finra statistics. That compares to what critics had calculated as a historical win rate of 90%.
In the first quarter this year, arbitrators granted around 66% of requests, down from 69% in the same period in 2025 but in-line with the post-reform trend. Between 2024 and the first quarter this year, arbitrators granted 289 of the 433 straight-in expungement requests, or roughly 67%.
The volume of straight-in requests, which are filed separately from an underlying arbitration, have fluctuated following a rush in the two years before the reforms took effect.
Through May this year, brokers filed 76 expungement requests, which implied an annualized rate of approximately 182 cases, a pace below 313 requests in 2025 but above 144 in 2024.
The reforms, which investor advocates pushed for years, raised filing fees, limited arbitrator selection options and imposed tighter procedural requirements for brokers seeking to expunge customer complaints from the Central Registration Depository system.
Neither the Public Investors Arbitration Bar Association nor attorneys who regularly represent brokers seeking expungements said they are overwhelmingly pleased with the results.
“Finra acquiesced to persistent complaining by PIABA and started tightening the expungement process,” Dochtor D. Kennedy, president of AdvisorLaw, which regularly represents brokers seeking expungement, wrote in an email.
The volume of requests that his firm filed dipped modestly by about a quarter in 2024, rebounded in 2025 and is on track to reach a slightly higher level this year, Kennedy said. Some would-be clients are also blocked from using Finra’s forum due to the changes and have had to file cases in other arbitration venues or directly in court, he added.
PIABA President Michael C. Bixby described in an email the 2023 reforms as “a significant step by Finra towards fixing the expungement free-for-all.” He acknowledged a “material improvement” compared to the previous process.
But Bixby argued that brokers are still prevailing “at a very high rate” for what Finra has said should be an “extraordinary remedy.” He said some brokers’ lawyers are also attempting to use tactics to discourage customer participation in expungement proceedings, including requests for multi-day hearings.
“[T]here is still work to be done and we are seeing new forms of abuse cropping up in the expungement process,” Bixby said.
Bixby did note PIABA has not yet identified a meaningful trend of brokers attempting to bypass Finra by seeking expungements in court or alternate forums.