New York Attorney General Letitia James is no stranger to controversy and to major legal forays such as her recently proposed legislation, described as “the strongest and most comprehensive set of regulations” in the U.S. to govern cryptocurrency markets. The proposed legislation, the Crypto Regulation, Protection, Transparency & Oversight (CRPTO) Act, would give James more… Read More >>
FINRA to Tag Errant Firms as ‘Restricted’
If you’re a broker-dealer firm, you might want to mark June 1, 2023 on your calendar. That’s the enforcement start date for a new FINRA designation: Restricted. Restricted as in there’s a history of misconduct allegations against the firm. And restricted because the firm presents a “high degree of risk to the investing public.” So… Read More >>
TNS Buys BornTec’s Co-Location Services & Other News
TNS Adds to Global Connectivity Footprint Transaction Network Services (TNS) has acquired BornTec’s managed hosting and co-location business, which will add to TNS’ global connectivity footprint and bolster previous TNS acquisitions, officials say. The latest acquisition was completed on March 21, 2023. The BornTec co-location acquisition adds to TNS’s global deployment of Layer 1 ultra-low… Read More >>
FINRA Fines Webull $3M on Customer Approval Woes
Exercising “reasonable due diligence” before approving customers for options trading: How hard is that? For that matter, how hard is it to maintain a supervisory system “reasonably designed to identify and respond to customer complaints?” And what about “not reporting certain written customer complaints to FINRA as required?” Taken together, those are the $3 million… Read More >>
UBS Securities Hit With Another FINRA Fine
UBS Securities, a subsidiary of the world’s largest private bank, is in trouble with FINRA, the brokerage industry’s self-regulatory organization (SRO). It’s not the first time. From the regulatory authority’s customary Letter of Acceptance, Waiver and Consent (AWC), FINRA alleges: “From September 2015 through January 2019, UBS-S published inaccurate monthly statistics regarding execution of covered… Read More >>
A Quick Warning About ‘Selling Away’
It’s the start of a new year and many investors will be reviewing their financial portfolios. Some of them may soon be reaching for antacids or for lower-shelf martinis. Given the volatility of global financial markets, investors at all levels will have to be forgiven if they’re a little vulnerable to the power of suggestion… Read More >>
CAT Data Helps SEC Build Insider Trading Case
The ambitious, big data, securities transaction monitoring project known as the Consolidated Audit Trail (CAT) helped SEC officials build a case in an alleged, multi-year, insider trading scheme that yielded $47 million for the accused perpetrators, according to the SEC. “The SEC staff analyzed trading using the Consolidated Audit Trail (CAT) database to uncover [Alan]… Read More >>
Wedbush Fined for Misreporting Bond Data to Clients
With apologies to the bodacious Miss Tina Turner, who was singing about Nutbush, her hometown, in 1973, and to Wedbush Securities, a member of FINRA since way back in 1955, the Questions of the Week are these: How did a firm with Wedbush’s experience come to “negligently” misrepresent on “monthly account statements that it sent… Read More >>
Succession Plans Will Prevent Chaos & Failure: FINRA
Here’s a good idea: Plan for life events, whether expected or unexpected. That’s the helpful word from FINRA, the broker-dealer sector’s own regulatory authority. “Succession planning can benefit customers, member firms and registered representatives,” the regulatory authority declares in its recent Regulatory Notice 22-23, which “discusses these benefits, as well as common types of succession… Read More >>
FINRA Eases Compliance via a Machine Readable Rulebook
It’s clear that during the Biden administration U.S. federal regulators and self-regulatory organizations (SROs) have been a little busy formulating new regulations and guidelines. They have also been keeping an eye on how updated technology can help firms meet their compliance obligations. In fact, the SEC recently greenlit a new era of electronic recordkeeping by… Read More >>
