[ by Melanie Gretchen ] A Goldman Sachs unit won $500,000 in legal fees after 2 investors lost an arbitration case against the firm involving a risky options trading strategy, a FINRA arbitration panel ruled.  Eric Snyder, a former real estate investment trust executive, and his wife, Barbara, filed "clearly erroneous" claims against the firm, according to a FINRA arbitration award posted on Monday on the agency's website. FINRA Findings and Allegations. The Snyders, who filed the claim in late 2009, originally sought $10 million from the firm for allegedly recommending unsuitable investments, misrepresenting information, and breaching its duty of fair dealing to them, among other misdeeds.  The couple claimed that the brokerage firm did not recommend a certain hedging strategy to protect them against possible losses in their position, according to the ruling. What Happened. The claim stemmed from a "concentrated position" of stock in CBL & Associates Properties Inc, a real estate investment trust in Chattanooga, TN, according to the award.  Eric Snyder worked for the company for nearly 35 years until 2008, most recently as its director of corporate leasing unit, according to his LinkedIn profile. The stock dropped significantly at the start of the U.S. financial crisis in late 2008, and the Snyders experienced "a huge CBL stock loss," the FINRA panel wrote.  However, the panel did not hold the brokerage firm accountable. Rather, it was the Snyders who ignored recommendations by Goldman's brokers to sell the stock, the panel ruled.  Eric Snyder "was an experienced stock trader who was aware of the risk of holding a concentrated position of CBL stock and is responsible for his own actions," it wrote."  (T)he loss was caused by (the Snyders') own actions and the stock market collapsing in the fall of 2008. FINRA Sanctions. Not only did the FINRA panel in Atlanta, GA, dismiss the case and award legal fees to the brokerage at the request of Goldman's lawyers, but it ordered the Snyders to pay $500,000 to cover Goldman's legal fees and costs, according to the ruling dated 5/30/12.  A law in Tennessee, where the Snyders lived at the time of the dispute, authorized the panel to award legal fees to Goldman, according to the ruling. Altogether, the Snyders must pay all but $1,200 of nearly $25,000 in hearing fees that FINRA's dispute resolution unit charges for the service, traditionally split between parties, according to lawyers.  In addition, the panel recommended removing a disclosure about the investors' complaint from 2 brokers who advised them, a process known as expungement. "It's a head turner," said Andrew Stoltmann, a Chicago-based lawyer who represents investors in arbitration cases.  Requiring the investors to pay legal fees and recommending to expunge the brokers' records "is about as harsh as a claimant ... can get," he said. [Reuters, 6/4/12]