Keith Schooley, a former Merrill Lynch financial consultant, has opened an official Facebook page for his book "Merrill Lynch: The Cost Could Be Fatal," which recounts his nine-year fight with the firm after he reported what he viewed as improprieties. The page's launch is significant because it seeks to broaden public exposure for a case that raises enduring questions about whether employees can report wrongdoing without sacrificing their careers, and whether investors are better served by arbitration than by juries.
Schooley joined Merrill Lynch in July 1991 as a financial consultant trainee in a small Oklahoma branch office, scoring 93.2 percent on the Series 7 exam and ranking among the top ten rookie producers in his division. Fourteen months later, he was out of the securities industry for good. The book's title is drawn from the firm's own general counsel, who warned in a 1992 employee publication that letting integrity take second place to revenue would cost more than dollars: "The cost could be fatal."
Citing the firm's written requirement that employees report improprieties to whatever level of management is necessary, Schooley wrote a four-page memo to his branch manager and then a 31-page letter to all thirteen members of the board of directors. According to his account, the aftermath included two internal investigations, inquiries by the SEC, the NYSE, the NASD and two state insurance departments, his own termination, a forced move into binding securities arbitration, a four-day hearing, and more than a decade of appeals. The arbitration panel awarded him nothing.
Schooley does not conceal that outcome. The book opens with a foreword by his former attorney, Stephen Jones, who states plainly that Schooley lost and argues that the real subject is not one man's case but whether investors should have claims decided by arbitrators rather than juries. Jones tells readers that each of them becomes "one of the jurors he never had." The book reconstructs the dispute from Schooley's memos, letters, regulatory correspondence, recorded telephone conversations and the arbitration hearing transcript, including testimony from the firm's own compliance and legal executives.
The new Facebook page is intended to put the account in front of readers who have never heard of it, with supporters asked to like and share it. The book is also available through Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HKY222R6. Schooley grew up in Oklahoma City, earned a B.B.A. from the University of Oklahoma and an M.B.A. from Oklahoma State University, and worked in oil and gas before turning to Wall Street. He lives in Enid, Oklahoma. The announcement matters because it signals a renewed effort to draw attention to the practical limits of internal reporting and the arbitration system that often decides such disputes out of public view.
