About Charles Bennett

Charles is a corporate and securities lawyer who has spent over 30 years managing and advising in all aspects of securities distributions. His experience has involved public, private and municipal capital formation in both government and private sectors. During law school in San Francisco, he worked on the floor of the Pacific Stock Exchange and in the securities legal department for a real estate syndicator. After law school, Charles started his career in the Corporate Financing Department of the National Association of Securities Dealers, Inc. (now known as FINRA) in Washington, DC, eventually becoming the Director of the Department. He managed a large staff that was responsible for approving the terms of FINRA member public offerings, including permissible levels of compensation and other underwriting terms and arrangements. While Director of Corporate Financing, he earned his Master of Laws, Securities Law, from Georgetown University Law Center. He left FINRA and entered the securities industry where he worked as manager of the equity syndicate desk at his first firm and in-house legal counsel and chief compliance officer at all 3 firms. He , qualified as an associated person of a broker dealer, passing the Series 7, Series 24, Series 9, Series 10, Series 55, and Series 66 examinations.
As in-house legal counsel Charles was responsible for the dispute resolution docket, contract management and human resources. As vice president and chief compliance officer, he was responsible for providing sales managers and trading desk supervisors with advice on the day-to-day oversight of sales and supervisory processes for retail and institutional broker dealers, investment bankers, research analysts and investment advisors.
Charles left the securities industry to become a consultant and expert witness, providing litigation counsel and clients with significant insights related to all aspects of FINRA rules and regulations, particularly sales practices such as suitability, churning, excessive mark-ups and commissions, broker dealer risk management, internal controls, due diligence obligations and reasonable basis inquiries in both public and private offerings. He also advises and testifies on all aspects of SEC broker dealer regulation and compliance and SEC disclosure obligations for public offerings, including the structure and sales practices of private placements structured to comply with the provisions of Regulation D.