v. michael arias, p.a.

V. Michael Arias is an Attorney and financial services industry executive with 30 years of experience in legal, litigation, arbitration, compliance, regulatory, sales, training, and management areas of the securities industry and financial fraud.

His stellar career began as a prosecutor for the Office of the State Attorney in Orlando, Florida, later transitioning to a litigation enforcement attorney with the United States Securities & Exchange Commission. Subsequently, he worked as in-house counsel, Regional Development Manager and Branch Manager with Prudential Securities.  V. Michael Arias ended his corporate career as the Coral Gables Branch Manager with Morgan Stanley Dean Witter.  In 2004, he returned to the practice of law representing investors, individual brokers and small broker/dealers.

V. Michael Arias was admitted to the Florida Bar in May of 1982 and holds J.D, MBA and BS degrees from the Florida State University.

V. Michael Arias served as Senior Counsel, in the Enforcement Division of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for six years, where he litigated civil injunctive actions and administrative proceedings against individuals, broker-dealers and public companies for violations of the federal securities laws.  During this time, Arias was involved in all aspects of the enforcement activities of the SEC, including the initial review of possible violations, acquisition of documents, taking testimony of witnesses and analysis of data. Arias prepared memoranda for the Commission with findings and recommendations and negotiated settlements on behalf of the Commission.

Cases included investigations and institution of civil actions for penny stock fraud, broker dealer net capital deficiencies and books and records violations, financial fraud, fraudulent corporate filings, misuse of corporate funds, stock manipulation, insider trading and pyramid schemes.

After six years with the SEC, Arias joined Prudential Securities as in-house counsel, where he defended the Firm in numerous arbitrations involving a wide range of investor-related complaints. Arias then entered into management for the retail broker-dealer operations with Prudential Securities. During his

tenure on the management side of Prudential Securities, Arias was an Assistant Manager, Administrative Manager and Branch Office Manager, before being promoted to Regional Development Manager. 

In 2000, Arias moved to Morgan Stanley, as the Senior Vice President, Branch Office Manager for the Coral Gables Branch, where he was responsible for supervising over 60 brokers and staff, generating over $17 million in revenue, annually.

In 2004, Arias returned to the practice of law, specializing in the representation of investors and brokers in the arbitral process. Arias specializes in the representation of investors, broker-dealers and registered representatives in FINRA arbitrations.

Over the last 15 years Arias has won or settled multimillion dollar cases for both investors and for wrongfully terminated registered representatives.