The CFTC has issued two separate but related orders settling charges against Stephen Gola and Jonathan Brims for spoofing — generally defined as “bidding or offering with the intent to cancel the bid or offer before execution” — in U.S. Treasury futures markets while trading for Citigroup Global Markets Inc. (CGMI). The actions against the… Read More >>
Lek Securities Charged with Aiding Fraud via Client
Lek Securities and Samuel F. Lek, CEO of the firm, are facing charges that they facilitated manipulative trading by one of its customers, dubbed “Avalon.” The charges are being brought by the self-regulatory organization Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) in conjunction with the New York Stock Exchange, NYSE Arca, NYSE MKT; four Bats Exchanges (Bats… Read More >>
Morgan Stanley Penalized Again for Improper ETF Sales
Morgan Stanley Smith Barney (MSSB) will pay an $8 million penalty and has admitted wrongdoing to settle charges related to single inverse Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) investments it recommended to advisory clients, according to the SEC, which finds that Morgan Stanley “did not adequately implement its policies and procedures to ensure that clients understood the… Read More >>
Citi Settles FX Cartel Charges with South African Regulator
A regulatory body in South Africa, the Competition Commission, has announced a $5.3 million settlement with Citibank N.A. for the bank’s alleged role in a foreign exchange FX trading cartel Competition Commission report that they have “found that from at least 2007, Citibank N.A. and its competitors had a general agreement to collude on prices… Read More >>
SEC Freezes Broker’s Accounts in Insider Trading Scheme
The SEC reports that it has secured an emergency court order freezing the brokerage accounts of Shaohua (Michael) Yin, who is accused of holding $29 million in “illegal profits from insider trading in advance of the April 2016 acquisition of DreamWorks Animation SKG, Inc. by Comcast Corp.” Yin is a Wharton Business School graduate with… Read More >>
RBS Pays $85M Fine in Benchmark-Rigging Case
U.S. regulator CFTC fined the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) $85 million for its alleged role in manipulating the ISDAfix benchmark, which is tied to the $311 trillion interest rate swaps market. The civil penalty against the U.K. state lender is the fourth settlement the regulator has struck in its four-year-long investigation. All of the… Read More >>
FINRA Expels Lawson Financial, Bars CEO on Fraud Charges
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) reports that it has expelled Phoenix-based Lawson Financial Corporation, Inc. (LFC), and has barred Robert Lawson, LFC’s CEO and president, from the securities industry on charges of committing securities fraud when Lawson “sold millions of dollars of municipal revenue bonds to LFC customers.” The municipal revenue bonds Lawson sold… Read More >>
Deutsche Bank Fined $631M for Laundering Rubles
Deutsche Bank will be paying $631.5 million in fines to U.S. and U.K. authorities for violations of anti-money laundering (AML) that were part of a “mirror trading” scheme that involved the German institution’s Moscow, London and New York branches, and resulted in the laundering $10 billion out of Russia. The transactions in question occurred between… Read More >>
Citi Pays $18M Penalty to Settle Overbilling Charges
The SEC reports that Citigroup Global Markets Inc. (CGMI) has agreed to pay $18.3 million for over-billing investment advisory clients and misplacing client contracts. In fact, the SEC contends that “at least 60,000 advisory clients were overcharged approximately $18 million in unauthorized fees because Citigroup failed to confirm the accuracy of billing rates entered into… Read More >>
Citadel, Morgan Stanley & JPMorgan Settle with Pre-Trump Regulators
Shortly before the Trump administration came to power on January 20, the SEC and CFTC settled with some major industry players such as Citadel Securities, Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, and J.P. Morgan Securities (JPMS). The violations ranged from charges of misleading statements about trade orders to billing and supervisory failures. Some of the penalties paid… Read More >>
