FINRA Rule 9262

The designation of court reporters and notary publics as the authorized oath administrators provides the qualified neutral whose administration of the oath creates the legal solemnity that distinguishes sworn testimony from informal statement. 

Every witness who testifies in every FINRA disciplinary hearing — including the respondent themselves — testifies under the framework that FINRA Rule 9262's two sentences establish.

FINRA Rule 9262 sits within the 9260 Hearing and Decision subsection of the 9200 Disciplinary Proceedings section of the 9000 Code of Procedure series. 

It was adopted by SR-NASD-97-28 effective August 7, 1997 and last amended by SR-FINRA-2008-021 effective December 15, 2008 as part of the consolidated FINRA rulebook transition announced in Regulatory Notice 08-57. The rule has not been substantively amended since its original adoption. One selected notice is associated with the rule — 08-57.

The Oath Requirement: Scope and Application

FINRA Rule 9262's first sentence — a person who is subject to the jurisdiction of FINRA shall testify under oath or affirmation — establishes the oath requirement through two specific choices: the subject matter scope defined by FINRA jurisdiction, and the mandatory shall.

The FINRA jurisdiction limitation is the rule's defining boundary. FINRA Rule 9262 applies to persons who are subject to FINRA's jurisdiction — members and associated persons of member firms, and other persons subject to FINRA's regulatory authority. Persons who are not subject to FINRA's jurisdiction — most notably customers and other third-party witnesses who have no FINRA registration or affiliation — are not within the scope of FINRA Rule 9262's mandatory oath requirement.

This jurisdictional limitation has significant practical consequences in FINRA disciplinary proceedings, which frequently involve customer witnesses whose account records, transactions, and communications are at the center of the charged violations. A customer who testifies at a FINRA disciplinary hearing is not required to testify under oath pursuant to FINRA Rule 9262 — because they are not subject to FINRA's jurisdiction. OHO Order 05-37 confirmed this practical reality directly — customer witnesses may testify by telephone as a reasonable accommodation, and their non-sworn status is an established feature of FINRA disciplinary hearings.

The mandatory shall formulation confirms that oath or affirmation is not optional for persons within its scope. A person subject to FINRA's jurisdiction who appears as a witness — whether called by the Department of Enforcement or by the respondent, whether a cooperating witness or an adverse witness, whether an industry professional or a FINRA employee — must testify under oath or affirmation. The requirement applies to every witness whose testimony is received at the hearing, including the respondent themselves.

FINRA's Guide to the Disciplinary Hearing Process confirms the universal application of the oath requirement to FINRA-jurisdiction witnesses explicitly: every witness, including the respondent, testifies under oath or affirmation, and testimony is elicited by asking questions. The inclusion of the respondent in this formulation is significant — a respondent who takes the stand in their own defense is subject to the same oath requirement as any other FINRA-jurisdiction witness, and any materially false statements in that sworn testimony constitute perjury.

Oath or Affirmation: The Alternative Formulation

FINRA Rule 9262 permits testimony under either oath or affirmation — a dual formulation that accommodates witnesses with religious or conscientious objections to swearing an oath. The oath is the traditional form — a solemn pledge invoking a religious or divine witness to the truth of the testimony. The affirmation is the secular alternative — a solemn promise to tell the truth without religious invocation. Both carry identical legal force — testimony given under affirmation is as legally binding as testimony given under oath, and false testimony under either constitutes perjury.

The oath-or-affirmation formulation mirrors Federal Rule of Evidence 603, which requires every witness to declare that they will testify truthfully by oath or affirmation — confirming that FINRA Rule 9262 tracks established federal testimonial integrity standards even in the context of FINRA Rule 9145(a)'s non-application of the Federal Rules of Evidence. FINRA's formal rules of evidence do not apply, but the foundational testimonial integrity requirement of sworn testimony applies fully.

Administration by Court Reporter or Notary Public

FINRA Rule 9262's second sentence specifies the two categories of persons authorized to administer the oath or affirmation — a court reporter or a notary public. Both are credentialed neutral professionals whose administration of an oath creates the formal legal record of the testimonial solemnity that perjury law requires.

The court reporter — who is present at every FINRA disciplinary hearing pursuant to FINRA Rule 9265's mandatory recording requirement — is the natural primary administrator. The court reporter's dual role as oath administrator and transcript creator ensures continuity between the sworn commitment and the transcribed record of the testimony given pursuant to that commitment. The court reporter's transcript, which begins with the administration of the oath or affirmation and records every subsequent word the witness speaks, creates the seamless evidentiary record from commitment to content that appellate review depends upon.

The notary public alternative accommodates situations where a court reporter may not be immediately available — for example, when a witness testifies by telephone or remote means in a context where the court reporter cannot be physically present to administer the oath. A notary public, licensed by state authority to administer oaths and affirmations, can perform the oath administration function with equivalent legal force.

Remote Testimony and the Oath Accommodation

The increasing prevalence of remote testimony in FINRA disciplinary proceedings — through telephone and video conference formats authorized by FINRA Rule 9261(b) following the August 2023 permanent amendment — requires adaptation of FINRA Rule 9262's oath administration requirement. When a witness testifies by video conference or telephone and cannot be physically present with the court reporter, the oath must be administered through alternative means.

FINRA's Guide to Expedited Proceedings addresses this practical challenge directly in the context of telephone and video conference hearings: because OHO generally conducts expedited hearings by telephone or video conference, an oath or affirmation cannot be administered in person to each witness. Therefore, every witness who is subject to FINRA jurisdiction or is a FINRA employee must produce a signed and notarized affirmation or affidavit stating that their testimony at the hearing will be truthful. This signed and notarized affirmation — executed before a notary public prior to the hearing — satisfies FINRA Rule 9262's oath or affirmation requirement in the remote context, substituting a notarized pre-hearing document for the real-time court-reporter-administered oath that is standard in in-person proceedings.

The same adaptation applies in FINRA Rule 9261 video conference disciplinary hearings — witnesses who testify remotely by video conference or telephone must execute a notarized affirmation of truthfulness before the hearing, satisfying FINRA Rule 9262's requirement through the notary public pathway even when a court reporter cannot administer the oath in person.

Testimony Examination: The Hearing Practice Beyond the Rule

While FINRA Rule 9262 itself addresses only the oath requirement, the broader testimonial practice in FINRA disciplinary hearings — confirmed in FINRA's Guide to the Disciplinary Hearing Process — encompasses the complete examination framework within which oath-governed testimony is elicited. Every witness is subject to examination by all parties and by the Hearing Officer and Panelists. The typical examination sequence follows the standard adversarial format: direct examination by the calling party, cross-examination by opposing parties, redirect examination, and recross-examination. Panelists and the Hearing Officer may interpose questions at any appropriate point — a feature of Hearing Panel examination that distinguishes FINRA disciplinary hearings from federal court trials where judges typically confine their questioning.

The Panel's active questioning function is a direct expression of FINRA Rule 9145(b)'s expert body principle — the Hearing Panel, composed of an attorney Hearing Officer and two securities industry Panelists, brings substantive expertise to witness examination that a lay jury does not possess. Panelists who have spent careers in the brokerage industry may ask penetrating questions about trading practices, supervision protocols, or account management that would not occur to a lawyer-conducted examination, and these questions frequently elicit testimony that is among the most probative in the entire proceeding. The oath requirement of FINRA Rule 9262 governs all of this testimony — Panel questions, like party examination, elicit sworn testimony whose truthfulness is legally enforced by the oath or affirmation administered at the outset.

FINRA Rule 9262 and Non-Jurisdiction Witnesses

The practical significance of FINRA Rule 9262's jurisdictional limitation becomes most apparent in cases involving customer witnesses — the persons most directly harmed by the conduct at issue in many enforcement actions. Customers who were the victims of churning, unsuitable recommendations, unauthorized trading, or other misconduct are central witnesses in the enforcement cases charging those violations. But customers, who are not members or associated persons of FINRA member firms, are not subject to FINRA's jurisdiction and therefore cannot be compelled to testify under FINRA Rule 8210's authority.

The consequences flow in two directions. First, customers cannot be compelled to appear at FINRA disciplinary hearings at all — their testimony is entirely voluntary, and FINRA Rule 9252's FINRA Rule 8210 compulsion mechanism cannot reach them. Second, if customers do appear voluntarily and testify, FINRA Rule 9262's oath requirement does not apply to them — their testimony is not sworn testimony in the technical legal sense. OHO decisions have consistently recognized this distinction — acknowledging that customer testimony at FINRA hearings is not sworn pursuant to FINRA Rule 9262, while treating such testimony as evidence that the Panel weighs alongside other evidence in reaching its factual conclusions. The absence of a formal oath obligation does not make customer testimony inadmissible — FINRA Rule 9145(a)'s non-application of formal evidence rules means customer testimony may be admitted regardless of its non-sworn character — but its weight may be assessed differently from the sworn testimony of FINRA-jurisdiction witnesses.

Parallel with FINRA Rule 8210

FINRA Rule 9262's oath requirement operates in parallel with the oath or affirmation provision in FINRA Rule 8210 — which provides that FINRA staff has the right to require persons subject to FINRA's jurisdiction to testify under oath or affirmation administered by a court reporter or notary public during investigations. The identical administrator-qualification language — court reporter or notary public — in both FINRA Rule 9262 and FINRA Rule 8210 creates consistency across FINRA's investigative and adjudicative phases. A person who gave FINRA Rule 8210 testimony under oath during the investigation that preceded the complaint will give FINRA Rule 9262 testimony under oath at the disciplinary hearing — the same formal testimonial accountability framework applies throughout the enforcement process from initial investigation through final adjudication.

This parallelism is operationally significant for the cross-examination framework of FINRA Rule 9253. When a witness's prior FINRA Rule 8210 investigative testimony — given under the same oath standard as FINRA Rule 9262 hearing testimony — is produced pursuant to FINRA Rule 9253, any inconsistency between the investigative testimony and the hearing testimony is an inconsistency between two sworn statements. The perjury risk attached to inconsistencies between prior and current sworn statements creates a powerful incentive for witnesses to be consistent — and when inconsistencies do appear, they carry the weight of a potential false oath violation rather than merely a credibility question.

Examination Relevance and Key Takeaways

FINRA Rule 9262 is tested on the Series 24 General Securities Principal examination as the foundational testimonial integrity rule of the disciplinary hearing — the rule that establishes that sworn testimony is the standard for all persons within FINRA's jurisdiction who testify at disciplinary hearings.

The key points to retain are these: FINRA Rule 9262 requires that every person subject to FINRA's jurisdiction who testifies at a disciplinary hearing must do so under oath or affirmation — the mandatory shall leaves no discretion; the oath or affirmation must be administered by a court reporter or a notary public — these are the only two categories of authorized administrators; the rule applies to all FINRA-jurisdiction witnesses including the respondent themselves; persons not subject to FINRA's jurisdiction — most notably customers — are not required to testify under oath pursuant to FINRA Rule 9262, though their voluntary testimony is admissible under FINRA Rule 9145(a)'s flexible evidentiary framework; in remote testimony contexts — telephone or video conference under FINRA Rule 9261(b) — witnesses subject to FINRA's jurisdiction must produce a signed and notarized affirmation prior to the hearing satisfying FINRA Rule 9262's requirement through the notary public pathway; every witness is subject to examination by all parties and by the Hearing Officer and Panelists — a feature of FINRA disciplinary hearings that reflects the expert body status of the Hearing Panel; FINRA Rule 9262's oath standard operates in parallel with FINRA Rule 8210's investigative testimony oath standard — creating consistent testimonial accountability across the full enforcement process from investigation through adjudication; and the rule was adopted in 1997 and last amended December 15, 2008 through SR-FINRA-2008-021 with no substantive amendments since original adoption.