Thomas F. Shine has been a member of the Florida Bar since 1980 and has more than twenty-two years of work experience with the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (“FINRA”), formerly known as the National Association of Securities Dealers, Inc., the Florida Department Banking and Finance (which is now part of the Florida Department of Financial Services) and in private practice protecting the rights of investors. Following the successful completion of his MBA degree requirements at Florida State University, Tom taught Principles of Corporate Finance to undergraduate business students at Florida State University, the University of Nevada Reno and George Washington University in Washington, D.C. (1982 - 1985). Tom also taught Investments to undergraduate business students at the University of Nevada Reno during 1983 and 1984.
During the seven and half year period from June 1985 through December 1992, Tom fulfilled a long-term goal to work for the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Division of Enforcement in Washington, D.C. Tom’s individual investigative efforts and his participation on teams with other investigators resulted in the SEC bringing enforcement actions against various persons and entities alleging: insider trading; stock and bond market manipulation schemes; and sales of unregistered securities. Tom’s SEC experiences were invaluable in teaching him about the various intricacies and mechanics of the securities markets and the securities industry along with the standards of conduct to which members of the industry are held.
From April 1993 through the present, Tom has worked in private practice in Melbourne/Indialantic, Florida primarily representing individuals with claims against broker-dealers and other sellers of financial services and products. Tom has been a member of the Public Investors Arbitration Bar Association since 1993, a nation-wide organization of attorneys who focus their practices on the representation of investors with claims against providers of financial services and products. The cases in which Tom has represented investors or investigated since entering private practice have involved allegations of misrepresentations and failures to disclose material facts; unsuitable recommendations of risky securities and strategies (speculative stocks and options, high yield securities, unsecured promissory notes, limited partnerships, collateralized mortgage obligations, trading on margin, failures to diversify assets among different asset categories and within individual asset categories, and short-term trading in mutual funds); unsuitable recommendations of other financial services products (e.g., fixed annuities, variable annuities, variable universal life insurance and viatical settlement contracts); churning (excessive trading of stocks, unit investment trusts and life insurance products); inappropriate pension advice (ERISA claim); market manipulation; and loan schemes.