Jeffrey Erez

What the Note Puts in Motion

A structured note combines a debt obligation with a return tied to one or more reference assets. Its payment terms may depend on the path of a stock, index, or other asset during the note’s life. Some notes pay a contingent coupon while a reference asset remains above a stated level. Some may be called before maturity. The same terms that offer a defined return can expose principal when the reference asset falls. Each term has to be read together.

FINRA has warned that structured notes can be harder to evaluate than traditional bonds and has told broker-dealers to train representatives, explain how a complex product may perform in different markets, assess suitability, and supervise recommendations. Those duties become factual questions in an investor case. The product documents establish the contractual terms. Account records establish concentration and trading. Messages, recorded calls, and witness testimony establish what the customer was told and what supervisors knew.

Jeffrey Erez founded Erez Law in Miami and limits his practice to securities arbitration and litigation for investors. Two recent cases against Stifel, Nicolaus & Co. provide unusually complete public records of that hearing work. The claims were filed days apart in May 2023 and proceeded on separate schedules. Both concerned structured-note recommendations by the same former financial adviser. Both name Erez and his partner Stefan Apotheker as counsel for the investors.

FINRA administered the arbitrations under rules approved by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Independent public arbitrators selected through the forum decided the claims. The awards make the division explicit: FINRA supplied the forum and had no part in deciding either result. That distinction keeps an arbitration award separate from a regulatory fine or disciplinary order. The panel heard the parties and imposed the award.

Deluca: Eleven Hearing Days

Louis and Elizabeth Deluca and their company, UBS, Inc., filed their FINRA claim in May 2023. They alleged breach of fiduciary duty, negligence, negligent supervision, fraud, breach of contract, and violation of the Florida Securities and Investor Protection Act arising from investments in structured notes. Stifel denied the allegations, asserted defenses, requested that the panel award the claimants nothing, and sought expungement of the associated customer-dispute record for former adviser Chuck Roberts.

Over eleven hearing dates in July and August 2024, the panel conducted thirty sessions. Under FINRA’s fee schedule, a hearing session covers no more than four hours, so the session count records the sustained presentation required from both sides without fixing the precise number of courtroom hours. The award identifies Erez and Apotheker as the claimants’ lawyers. It also records prehearing conferences before a single arbitrator and the full panel.

On October 3, 2024, the three arbitrators awarded $1,998,311 in compensatory damages to Louis and Elizabeth Deluca and $2,067,125 to UBS, Inc., with those figures including statutory interest through June 30, 2023. The panel added $9 million in punitive damages, $1.1 million in attorneys’ fees, $100,000 in costs, and $625 for part of the FINRA filing fee. The stated components total $14,266,061, before additional interest on the compensatory awards.

Deluca’s award states the causes of action, defenses, hearing schedule, and relief. It does not provide a reasoned account of the panel’s factual findings. The document nevertheless answers several questions with precision. Stifel was held liable for the stated sums. Punitive damages rested on Florida law and common law. The panel denied with prejudice Roberts’s request to remove the customer dispute from his registration record. The panel also denied relief it did not expressly grant.

On October 4, 2024, the claimants petitioned the Southern District of Florida to confirm the award. That proceeding ended on November 20, when the court dismissed it without prejudice following a voluntary dismissal. The public docket contains no confirmation judgment and does not establish the amount ultimately paid. The published result remains the arbitration panel’s award, followed by a federal case that closed before judgment.

Jannetti: A Written Supervision Record

David, Sarah Lyn, Adam, and Leah Jannetti filed a separate FINRA claim in May 2023. They asserted the same six causes of action against Stifel based on structured-note investments. Stifel denied their allegations and sought denial of all relief. The case went to thirty-eight hearing sessions on nineteen dates between October 2024 and January 2025. Erez and Apotheker again represented the investors before an all-public panel in Boca Raton.

Auto-callable contingent-coupon notes linked to a biotechnology exchange-traded fund and individual technology stocks stood at the center of Jannetti. Erez told Reuters that the family lost about $16 million over three years after its accounts were concentrated in the notes. Stifel described the Jannettis as sophisticated investors who understood the risks, helped select investments, monitored the accounts, and objected after losses. The hearing placed those competing accounts before three arbitrators.

Issued on March 12, 2025, the Jannetti award set out written findings. The panel found overconcentration in structured notes and limited industries. It found that Stifel chose not to send an overconcentration letter after a phone call even though the firm’s notes did not show that concentration had been discussed. It also identified leverage, failures of heightened supervision, misleading text messages sent outside required recordkeeping channels, and a branch manager’s lack of knowledge that Roberts required heightened supervision.

After hearing the evidence, the panel concluded that Stifel had actual knowledge of the wrongfulness of the conduct and the high probability of injury, then intentionally continued the course that caused the family’s damage. It found that the firm placed its financial interest ahead of the clients’ interests and permitted the use of inaccurate terminology in texts offering custom notes. Those written findings supplied the stated basis for punitive damages. They were findings by the arbitration panel, not findings by FINRA as a regulator.

Compensatory damages totaled $26,504,292 across the four family members. Punitive damages totaled $79,512,876, three times the compensatory amount. The panel awarded attorneys’ fees and costs equal to twenty-five percent of the compensatory and punitive awards for each claimant, a further $26,504,292. It also reimbursed $800 of the filing fee. Those components produce a total of $132,522,260, with Florida statutory interest on the compensatory sums from the date of the award until payment.

News reports focused on the size of the award. Its legal meaning remained exact. A panel of independent arbitrators ordered Stifel to pay the specified relief in a customer dispute. FINRA’s publication system made the award available and its rules governed the proceeding. FINRA did not impose a $132.5 million fine, and the award itself did not prove collection. Confirmation and enforcement would proceed in federal court.

The Award in Federal Court

On March 12, 2025, the day the arbitrators signed the award, the Jannettis petitioned the Southern District of Florida to confirm it. Stifel moved to vacate in May. It challenged the panel’s impartiality, the punitive damages, and the attorneys’ fees, among other issues. Vacatur asked the court to set aside some or all of the award. Confirmation asked the court to recognize it under the Federal Arbitration Act. The proceeding concerned the legal force of an existing arbitral decision. It did not reopen the hearing or retry every witness.

Erez remained counsel of record in the confirmation case. The docket also records appearances for Jonathan Eric Minsker and Melanie Emmons Damian on behalf of the Jannettis. Their assignments belonged to the federal proceeding that followed the arbitration work by Erez and Apotheker. Court filings, briefing, and the record assembled for review had to answer Stifel’s challenges under the narrow statutory rules governing arbitration awards.

Magistrate Judge Eduardo I. Sanchez recommended confirmation, denial of vacatur, and an award of prejudgment interest. On March 24, 2026, District Judge Darrin P. Gayles reviewed the disputed portions of that recommendation anew and adopted it in full. He granted the petition to confirm, denied Stifel’s vacatur motion, granted the Jannettis’ request for prejudgment interest, denied their request for sanctions, and closed the case for administrative purposes.

After confirmation, the Jannettis moved for entry of a separate final judgment that would state the award and accrued interest in dollar amounts. Before the court entered that proposed judgment, their lawyers notified the court on April 17 that the parties had reached a settlement in principle and asked for time to complete it. On May 19, the Jannettis withdrew the judgment motion and filed a stipulation of dismissal. Judge Gayles dismissed the case with prejudice, with each side bearing its own fees and costs.

Four distinct public events remain: the arbitration panel issued an award; the district court confirmed it and denied vacatur; the parties reached a confidential settlement; and the federal case ended by stipulated dismissal with prejudice. The settlement amount was not disclosed. The public record therefore establishes the award and the confirmation order while leaving the payment terms private.

A Practice Built for Hearing

Erez graduated cum laude from McGill University in 1993 and earned his law degree cum laude from the University of Miami in 1996. The Florida Bar admitted him in January 1997 and lists him as a member in good standing who is eligible to practice. He is also admitted in the Southern and Middle Districts of Florida. His firm biography describes a national investor practice centered on FINRA arbitration and securities litigation.

Before a hearing date, counsel must identify the payout terms of each note, match purchases and losses to the account record, determine how concentrated the holdings became, collect sales communications, test supervision records, and prepare testimony that explains those documents. A structured product can be suitable for some investors and still require careful explanation and supervision. The case turns on the particular recommendation, client, account, and evidence.

Deluca and Jannetti required separate client records and separate decisions. Deluca produced thirty hearing sessions and a detailed award of relief without written findings. Jannetti required thirty-eight sessions and ended with ten specific categories of conduct supporting punitive damages. One confirmation action closed without prejudice before judgment. The other produced a confirmation order, further judgment practice, a confidential settlement, and dismissal with prejudice.

Erez’s published biography says he has taken more than fifty FINRA proceedings through final hearing or award. The two records here supply a concrete measure of that work: eleven hearing days in Deluca, nineteen in Jannetti, and two awards naming Jeffrey Erez and Stefan Apotheker as counsel for the investors.