Quattrone wins ruling overturning lifetime industry ban

Mercury News ^ | 3/24/06 | Mark Schwanhausser

[NormsRevenge]

Score another round this week for Frank Quattrone. Silicon Valley's once-powerful investment banker won a ruling Friday that overturned a order banning him for life from working in the stock-market industry.

The Securities and Exchange Commission voted 5-0 to overturn the ban imposed by an industry regulator, the National Association of Securities Dealers. Now NASD must decide whether to try again to discipline Quattrone for refusing to testify in an investigation of activities during the technology industry boom.

Earlier this week, on Monday, a federal appeals court in New York overturned Quattrone's conviction on charges of obstructing justice. Prosecutors have not yet decided whether to bring him to trial for a third time, since his first trial ended in a hung jury.

``The day -- really the whole week with the criminal case -- was a thrill for Frank and for us,'' said one of Quattrone's lawyers, Jerome B. Falk, a partner with the San Francisco firm of Howard, Rice, Nemerovski, Canady, Falk and Rabkin. ``Things are looking up. . . . They do go a long way to making things right.'' NASD spokesman Herb Perone declined comment Friday on whether the regulator would try to ban Quattrone again from working in the stock-market industry.

The SEC ruling reopens a contentious issue for NASD, the self-policing securities industry regulator.

Quattrone's lawyers and defenders say the NASD targeted the financier because it needed a scapegoat in the wake of investigations into Wall Street's conflicts of interest and favoritism toward high-powered clients.