Chris McConnell AIFA® has over forty years of experience including twenty years as an independent fiduciary expert on: the securities, banking, insurance and financial services industry regulatory and internal compliance, custom and practice, supervision, suitability, diversity, recruiting, training, fiduciary duty, securities analysis, valuation, compensation and or incentives for licensed and unlicensed persons and third party vendors or contractors. He has decades of hands-on, extremely broad and in-depth, provided continuing legal and professional education for over 15 years. Mr McConnell can, based on his personal and professional experiences, an accurate unbiased perspective on the financial services and banking industries since the late 1970's near the beginning of Wall St's disintermediation strategy up through the GFC (Global Financial Crisis) of 2008 and thru the present day 2024 financial, banking, insurance and real estate services, online ordering, digital, social and traditional media marketing, and payments industry issues. He's still an avid soccer player, and since 1995, in his spare time has scouted NCAA Division 1 Men's Soccer nationwide both online and in person, covering over 2,000 matches.

Chris McConnell & Associates pioneered flat fee, independent, conflict-free fiduciary consulting in 2003. Mr McConnell’s FiduciaryFORENSICS™ assesses performance, potential liability and damages for both plaintiff and defense counsel as consultant, investigator and or expert witness nationwide and internationally. While in the securities industry he oversaw a national and international portfolio of over 500 branch offices, including the real estate, leases, development and improvements thereof and FA, branch manager, regional manager, product coordinator and service support personnel compensation for over 8.500 financial advisors including overseeing nationwide forgivable loans issued to recruited FA's since the early 1980's.

He has a deep and authoritative understanding of all products and services, all profit and cost centers, accounting, compliance, internal audit, supervision, surveillance, privacy and IT systems of a major broker dealer including the securities industry as a whole. He was appointed two times to spearhead to design, implement and report on regional diversity and inclusion initiatives involving over 40 branch offices efforts to increase diversity thru recruitment, hiring, training, development and promotion.

Cases involve a wide variety of industries, entities and issues such as family or closely-held businesses, corporate governance, securities, banking, legal malpractice, payments, online ordering, e-commerce, social, digital and traditional media, bankruptcy, divorce, trust, insurance, non-profits, foundations, endowments, FINRA, ERISA, precious metals, hedge funds, private placements, derivatives, intellectual property, compensation, valuation, training and employment. Failure to supervise, suitability, breach of fiduciary duty, misrepresentation, fraud, taxes, best execution, proxy voting, Uniform Prudent Investor Act, ERISA, Uniform Management of Institutional Funds, Uniform Management of Public Pension Plans, Coogans' Act, UTMA, UGMA, 529 Accounts, 401K plans, 403b plans and multi-employer or Taft-Hartley plans

Account types and all manner of financial and insurance instruments not limited to include: trusts (all types), IRAs, IRA Rollovers, ERISA, Taft-Hartley, Profit Sharing, non-profits, foundations, endowments. And matters not limited to regulatory agency, legal malpractice, family law, bankruptcy, criminal, white collar crime and divorce matters.

Mr McConnell is also an expert on the causes of the 2008 global financial crisis and the more recent 2019 / 2021 global financial panic (dating to September 2019, pre-dating Covid-19).

Educational Background:
B.A. - Economics / Accounting option, Rutgers University;
M.B.A. - Graziadio School of Business, Pepperdine University;
AIFA® - (Accredited Investment Fiduciary Analyst), Center for Fiduciary Studies, Katz Graduate School of Business, University of Pittsburgh and
Extensive accounting and tax training, knowledge and experience including successfully passing the Uniform Certified Public Accountant (CPA) examination, State of New York Board of Accountancy.

Mr McConnell has a truly impressive command drawn from over 40 years of deep and extensive hands-on experience, training, education and knowledge of all levels and elements of the securities, futures, banking and payments, financial services and insurance industry (and since 2003 e-commerce, social, digital and traditional media, online ordering, delivery and payments) including but not limited to the legal entity corporate governance, compliance, regulatory, accounting, tax, supervision, employee recruiting, training areas, industry custom and practice, standard of care and customer experience. His expertise spans representations and warrants in ads, social media, press releases, solicitation, point of sale, merchants, user, financial advisor, support personnel, branch, complex, region, headquarters, legal entity, broker/dealer, bank holding company entities, enterprise, cloud to blockchain touch points including the budgeting, accounting, compensation, incentives, disclosures, conflicts of interest, advertising, marketing, tax, regulatory reporting and requirements culminating in unique, succinct and incandescent case insights.

• Since 2004 and prior to the 2008 GFC (global financial crisis) Mr McConnell issued brief, annual FiduciaryALERTS™ warning trustees and fiduciaries with prudent steps to take to help protect trust assets (such as real estate and real estate-based investments) and trust beneficiaries from the dangers of leverage building up in the financial system. The 2004 FiduciaryALERT™ included a red flag when the largest Wall St broker dealers’ Excess SIPC insurance coverage was abruptly canceled.

He has assisted on cases pro-bono such as for a claimant, a retired file clerk who had $26 left in her bank account (the subject of a Los Angeles Times article) to exceedingly complex individual and corporate tax, securities, pension plan, life insurance and annuities matters to multi-billion dollar class actions including liability, potential exposures, valuations and damages for:
1. ERISA plan violations by the largest commercial bankruptcy in Las Vegas history for the PBGC (the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corp. the US govt. agency which protects US workers’ pensions)
2. Bankruptcy estate around a hedge fund manager and the Beverly Hills celebrity poker ring (later made into the movie, Molly's Game on Netflix)
3. Divorce of an investment partner of horse racing’s 1977 Triple Crown winner Seattle Slew’s original breeding syndicate
4. Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme, defense of a solo RIA (registered investment advisor)
5. Hollywood icon, intellectual property, Oscar-winning film copyrights, celebrity estate versus one of the largest trust companies in the world (probate matter)
6. Insured bank deposit sweep account class action & largest US broker/dealers banks’ multi-billion dollar customers’ funds diversion; a cause of the 2008 Global Financial Crisis and bailout
7. A nationwide gold coins, bullion & collectibles advertising and promotion scheme; illegal margin trading investigation
8. The successor trustee of a prominent family trust which operated a technology business (defense, of a founder of a prominent pension consulting firm)
9. The valuation of a Wall St financial advisor’s compensation & benefits plan under the 9/11 Victim’s Special Compensation Fund in a divorce (marital dissolution, family law)
10. A large family trust with operating farms, related brokerage account investments, trust heirs, beneficiaries and charitable trust, non-profit bequest dispute
11. The self-directed IRA involving an official of a national political party, foreign investment
12. Offshoring of US-based family trust bank accounts, over $100 Million claim in a constructive trust (Trust and Estate, Probate matter)
13. The criminal fraud impacting 5,000 investors in a VOIP patent investment scam, Ponzi scheme (Criminal defense)
14. Best execution matter for a Taft – Hartley, union pension plan
15. Publicly traded US home builder investigation, the issuer updated its SEC form 8-K disclosures
16. Investigation into the NYSE’s (then a non-profit) corporate governance & compensation paid to a former chairman
17. Professional athletes’ (one NFL & one NBA) high profile cases vs a major bank and affiliated broker-dealer
18. Elder financial abuse and exploitation, defense of a financial institution
19. IRA and subsequent conduit IRA, spousal Trust beneficiary and broker dealer malfeasance dispute involving one of the original investors in the Cheesecake Factory
20. IRA account and a medallion stamp signature guarantee, unauthorized transactions and withdrawals by a spouse against a global brokerage firm, within a related family law / divorce, trust beneficiary, child custody and bankruptcy case involving a pioneer of the fulfillments and promotions for the financial services industry
21. Corporate governance, termination, compensation of an employee/investor, medical technology industry
22. Rebuttal expert in re a legal malpractice claim, two adopted sons vs the trust and estate attorney for their deceased adoptive father
23. Violations of FINRA rules and regulations, broker dealer supervision, policies and procedures, unauthorized account transfers, change of beneficiary, medallion signature stamp guarantee, elder abuse and exploitation, breach of fiduciary duty involving the founder and owner of a closely-held family business vs a major broker dealer and a former licensed and registered employee
24. Elder abuse and unfair denial of benefits of membership by a fitness club, violations of required CA entity filings
25. Oscar’s (AMPAAS) awards recommendations and solutions (non-commissioned)
26. NCAA Division 1 Men’s Soccer investigation and solutions (non-commissioned)

When we are brought into a case, with over forty years of experience including hundreds of cases when on Wall St, and hundreds more as an independent consulting expert since 2003, we provide new, unique, fact-based insights and clarity which nearly always help bring about a settlement.

Website www.fiduciaryexpert.com/about

Email info@fiduciaryexpert.com

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Complimentary brief initial consultations, subject to availability