- SEC charged 11 Wall Street firms.
- The companies’ employees discussed business matters on personal devices, an offense, the regulator said.
- The brokers pleaded guilty and agreed to pay a $289 million fine.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged 11 Wall Street firms, brokers and investment advisers. The regulator alleges they violated certain accounting provisions of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the SEC said.
The investigation found that as of 2019, employees of the firms were discussing business matters on their personal devices. The mobile apps iMessage, WhatsApp, Signal and others were used for this purpose. The companies failed to take care to preserve such correspondence, which violates certain federal securities laws, the regulator says.
“Compliance with federal securities laws and recordkeeping requirements plays an important role in protecting investors and making markets work,” said SEC enforcement director Gurbir Grewal.
All 11 firms admitted to violating the law and agreed to pay fines totaling $289 million:
- Wells Fargo Securities, Wells Fargo Clearing Services and Wells Fargo Advisors Financial Network – $125 million;
- BNP Paribas Securities Corp. and SG Americas Securities – $35 mln each;
- BMO Capital Markets Corp. and Mizuho Securities USA – $25 million each;
- Houlihan Lokey Capital, Inc.. — $15 млн;
- Moelis & Company и Wedbush Securities Inc. — по $10 млн;
- SMBC Nikko Securities America, Inc. – $9 million.
In addition to the financial penalties, each of the firms was ordered to refrain from similar offenses in the future, the SEC said.
The regulator recently suspected mining firm Digital Licencing of $50 million in financial scams. Meanwhile, Gecko Labs has launched an index of tokens positioned as securities by the SEC.
Securities.