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From: Al Petrofsky <a...@petrofsky.org>
Newsgroups: misc.legal
Subject: Must I deposit all my securities into my employer's hands?
Date: 15 Jan 2003 00:53:55 -0800
Organization: The Vegetable Liberation Front
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I work for a securities brokerage house.  A long-standing regulation
requires that I arrange for my supervisor to receive copies of the
monthly statements of any personal securities accounts I have at other
brokerages.  This is so that he can check that I am not doing anything
untoward like purchasing something in my own account just before
encouraging our clients to buy it.

My company has just decided that in order to better monitor their
employees' transactions, all securities accounts (including IRAs) of
all employees and their immediate families must be moved to us (with
rare exceptions to be granted on a case-by-case basis).

Although I can understand the reasoning behind this, I am not at all
comfortable with the idea of my employer demanding that I hand my life
savings over to him for safekeeping.

Is this a legal condition of employment?  I'm sure our legal
department reviewed this decision before it was announced, so I
guess it's not expressly forbidden, but I wonder if there are any
general grounds on which this might be challenged.

I work in California and I think the brokerage is incorporated in
Delaware.  (We are privately held by a publicly-traded parent company
that is incorporated in Delaware.)

Thanks in advance for any pointers.

-al