If parties decide to postpone an in-person hearing, the postponement will not affect other case deadlines.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, FINRA has extended the postponement of all in-person arbitration and mediation hearings scheduled through January 1, 2021. However, if all parties and arbitrators agree to proceed in-person based on their own assessment of public health conditions, and applicable state and local orders allow, a case may proceed with an in-person hearing provided that the participants comply with state and local orders related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Parties may also opt to proceed telephonically or by Zoom, or a panel may order that the hearings take place telephonically or by Zoom. Since the beginning of the pandemic and as of August 31, 45 FINRA arbitration cases have conducted one or more hearings via Zoom (19 customer cases and 26 industry cases).
FINRA also received 156 motions for Zoom hearings through August 31, 2020: 93 contested motions and 63 joint motions. The decisions on the contested motions are below.
|
Contested Motions for Virtual Hearings |
Granted |
Denied |
Open |
Total |
|
Customer |
41 (73%) |
15 (27%) |
14 |
70 |
|
Intra-Industry |
11 (55%) |
9 (45%) |
3 |
23 |
|
Total |
52 (68%) |
24 (32%) |
17 |
93 |
If parties decide to postpone an in-person hearing, the postponement will not affect other case deadlines. All case deadlines will continue to apply and must be timely met unless the parties jointly agree otherwise. Parties stipulating to postpone in-person hearing dates should also consider stipulating to changing other case deadlines.
FINRA will waive postponement fees if parties who have an in-person hearing scheduled through March 31, 2021, stipulate to adjourn that hearing. To avoid postponement fees, parties must provide written notice of the stipulation to adjourn more than 20 days prior to the first scheduled hearing date.
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