Shep is practice leader of the firm’s Broker-Dealer and Financial Products Litigation Group, focusing on securities litigation, arbitration, compliance and regulatory matters. Prior to joining Bass, Berry & Sims, Shep was managing partner of Tate Lazarini Brady & Davis, PLC.
Corporate and Securities: Shep represents public and private companies in the financial services industry in matters relating to governance, finance and sales practices.
Financial Products and Broker-Dealer: Shep has represented broker-dealers, financial institutions, investment advisers, commodities firms and registered representatives in a wide variety of disputes throughout the country, ranging from trading desk disputes, raiding and employee transition cases, breach of contract actions, sales practice cases, product failure disputes, mark-up issues, and allegations of fraud and breach of fiduciary duty. He also represents firms and associated persons in regulatory proceedings involving FINRA and state and federal securities regulators.
Representative Matters include:
- Represented a broker-dealer that lost the personnel in its public finance department and considerable ongoing business to a competitor, obtaining an award of over $6 million in damages, of which $2 million represented punitive damages -- one of the largest punitive damage awards in an NASD raiding case.
- Defended a brokerage firm that had been accused of raiding, as it had hired a former branch manager and a group of brokers and staff from a competitor, leading to the closing of the competitor’s former branch office. After several weeks of hearings the FINRA arbitration panel entered an order denying all claims against the client.
- Defended brokerage firms and their registered representatives in arbitrations alleging claims that the respondents should have been responsible for trading losses due to claimants’ diminished capacity.
- Served as lead counsel for a large broker-dealer, overseeing and handling the national defense of its arbitrations; served as lead regional arbitration counsel for a large bank-affiliated broker-dealer.
- Represented a regional broker-dealer in a raiding claim against a competitor that had hired a significant number of employees from the client, many of which were in different offices and none of whom had non-compete contracts. After three weeks of hearings, the FINRA arbitration panel rejected all of the respondent’s defenses and awarded the client $1.75 million.
- Defended a national broker-dealer in a class action arising out of an institutional customer’s participation in a Ponzi scheme; class certification was denied and the claims were successfully resolved.
- Defended an underwriter in related cases involving a defaulted multi-family mortgage-backed bond issue. Plaintiffs in both actions filed actions asserting, among other things, that the client was responsible for alleged misrepresentations and omissions in the offering document. Following the filing of motions to dismiss, claims against the underwriter were dismissed.
A former chair of the Securities Section of the Memphis Bar Association, Shep has spoken at numerous seminars on securities litigation and has lectured on arbitration practice at the request of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.
Away from the office, Shep has been active in civic affairs, serving on numerous boards and as secretary/counsel to the Memphis Area Chamber of Commerce.
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