MoneyBeat (The Wall Street Journal Oct 21, 2015 4:30 am) --The Public Investors Arbitration Bar Association is calling for additional action to limit the removal of black marks from brokers’ records, writes WSJ.com’s Wealth Adviser. Piaba, which is comprised of lawyers who represent investors in cases against the securities industry, released data on Tuesday showing that many brokers are still getting customer-damage claims erased from their public records after those claims are resolved through the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority’s arbitration process. Finra arbitration panels recommended expungement in 87.8% of the 460 cases with such requests that were both filed and settled in the three years from 2012 through 2014. The latest figure is lower than the 96.9% expungement rate that an earlier Piaba report tallied for settled cases in the period from May 18, 2009, through 2011. Piaba says the statistics remain alarming. It is important “to protect the regulatory records so that if customers go look up their broker, they can see customer complaints or settlements,” said Joseph Peiffer, Piaba’s president. Finra disagrees with Piaba’s assessment. It said through a spokeswoman that it has “taken numerous steps to make clear that expungement is an extraordinary remedy,” and that Piaba’s study reflects “no qualitative analysis of the awards recommending expungement.”