How Long Does FINRA Arbitration Take?

A full FINRA customer arbitration that runs all the way to a hearing and award generally takes somewhere in the range of a year to eighteen months from the filing of the Statement of Claim. Cases that settle, and many do, often conclude considerably sooner.

Claims under FINRA's simplified procedures, which apply to smaller dollar amounts and are decided on the papers by a single arbitrator without an in-person hearing, move faster still.

After the Statement of Claim is filed and served, the responding firm answers. The parties then select arbitrators from FINRA's neutral list, exchange documents in discovery, and attend an initial pre-hearing conference where the schedule and hearing dates are set.

Discovery is usually the longest stretch. Brokerage firms hold most of the relevant records, and obtaining complete production of account documents, internal communications, and supervisory records takes time.

Cases run longer when there are multiple claimants or respondents, when discovery is contested, when the panel's calendar is crowded, or when hearings need to be spread across several sessions. Cases run shorter when the facts are clean, the documents arrive promptly, or the firm decides early that settlement is preferable to a hearing.

Being ready matters more than being fast. A claim filed with the account records already gathered and the theory of liability clearly framed moves through the process with far less friction than one assembled as it goes.