FINRA doesn't have subpoena power. That single fact is why Rule 8210 exists, and why Regulatory Notice 25-11 reads less like new guidance and more like a warning shot: members and associated persons are required to provide information and testimony in response to a FINRA staff request, no matter where they, or their records, happen to be located.
Rule 8210 gives FINRA staff and adjudicators the right to demand information — orally, in writing, or electronically — and to inspect and copy books, records and accounts in a firm's or person's possession, custody or control, in connection with an investigation, exam, complaint or proceeding. Because compliance is voluntary in the sense that FINRA can't compel it through a court, FINRA's actual leverage is the ability to expel a firm from membership, or bar an individual from associating with a member, for failing to respond — or for responding incompletely or untruthfully.
Why FINRA felt the need to say this now
FINRA members maintain registered persons in roughly 75 different countries, and a growing number are part of global corporate structures with parent companies or affiliates located overseas. Some of those jurisdictions have blocking statutes or secrecy laws — France's blocking statute and Switzerland's criminal code provisions are two FINRA cites by name — that purport to prohibit responding to information requests from foreign regulators.
Regulatory Notice 25-11 closes off any argument that foreign law creates an exception. It doesn't. A member with operations, personnel, or copies of books and records outside the U.S. is still on the hook, and FINRA Rule 3110 (Supervision) requires firms to build a supervisory system reasonably designed to achieve Rule 8210 compliance in the first place — not scramble to achieve it after a request lands.
- Production covers more than required recordkeeping. Rule 8210 reaches both records a firm is required to keep under FINRA rules or the Exchange Act, and other books, records or accounts the firm simply happens to make or keep in the course of operating as a broker-dealer.
- It reaches records held by a third party. If a firm or associated person controls or has the right to demand records from a professional service provider — an outsourced compliance vendor, for example — those records are in scope too.
- Testimony can be required at a U.S. location. FINRA can specify where testimony under oath takes place, including a FINRA office in the United States, regardless of where the witness normally works.
- This gets examined, not just enforced after the fact. FINRA has said its examination program will continue reviewing whether members with foreign operations or personnel can actually comply with Rule 8210 — including at the membership application stage, where FINRA's MAP program may require assurances of compliance capability up front.
How Compliers Can Help
We help firms build and pressure-test the supervisory systems Rule 3110 requires — including for firms with overseas personnel, affiliates, or outsourced functions where a Rule 8210 request could otherwise catch the firm flat-footed. Learn more about our Exam Readiness engagement.
What this means in practice
If your firm has any registered persons, affiliates, or vendor relationships outside the U.S., this notice is a prompt to actually walk through what would happen if a Rule 8210 letter arrived tomorrow: who has authority to produce the records, how quickly can records held by a foreign affiliate or vendor be retrieved, and does anyone on the team need to be told, in writing, that local secrecy law is not a valid basis to withhold information from FINRA. Firms that answer those questions during an exam, rather than before one, tend to answer them badly.