The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) reports that it has charged Equitable Financial Life Insurance Company with fraud, “for providing account statements to about 1.4 million variable annuity investors that included materially misleading statements and omissions concerning investor fees.” Equitable has agreed to compensate harmed investors, most of whom are public school teachers and staff… Read More >>
SocGen to Revamp Derivatives Clearing & Other News
Société Générale to Deploy FIS Solution Société Générale and systems and services provider FIS report that the French banking giant will be using the FIS Cleared Derivatives Suite for a “strategic transformation of its derivatives clearing back-office.” “As part of the agreement, the investment bank and financial services group will transition their existing derivatives… Read More >>
Aegis Capital Settles Charges of Excessive Trading
FINRA, the financial services industry’s self-regulatory authority, has levied fines and a sanction against Aegis Capital Corp. and two of its supervisors, Joseph Giordano and Roberto Birardi. Aegis Capital neither admits nor denies the FINRA accusations. However, Aegis will pay $1.7 million in restitution to 68 customers “whose accounts were potentially excessively and unsuitably traded… Read More >>
Supervisory Failures Alleged in Wells Fargo Annuity Switches
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority reports that Wells Fargo Clearing Services, LLC, and Wells Fargo Advisors Financial Network, LLC, two units of the San Francisco-based, multinational financial services company, will pay more than $2 million on charges of “supervisory violations related to variable annuity switches.” The Wells Fargo units will pay an additional $1.4 million… Read More >>
Chinese Bank’s Brokerage Settles DOJ & SEC Cases
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) reports that Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Financial Services LLC (ICBCFS), a New York-based, wholly owned subsidiary of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Ltd., will pay more than $42 million to settle charges that it improperly administered “pre-released” American Depositary Receipts (ADRs). Separately, ICBCFS has pled guilty… Read More >>
Hedge Fund Settles Charges of Deficient Valuation Policies
Hedge fund Deer Park Road Management Company has paid a $5 million penalty to settle charges from an SEC investigation that alleges its policies and procedures governing the valuation of fund assets had “compliance deficiencies.” In addition, the firm’s chief investment officer Scott E. Burg has paid a $250,000 penalty as part of the settlement… Read More >>
Banca IMI Pleads Guilty to ADR Bid-Rigging
Banca IMI Securities Corp., a New York broker-dealer, has pled guilty to an antitrust charge and been sentenced to pay a criminal penalty “in excess of $2 million for its involvement in a bid-rigging conspiracy for certain financial instruments,” the U.S. Department of Justice reports. Those financial instruments are pre-release American Depository Receipts (ADRs), which… Read More >>
BofA Pays $30M Penalty to Settle ISDAFIX Case
The U.S. CFTC has imposed a $30 million penalty against Bank of America, N.A. for alleged attempted manipulation and false reporting of the U.S. dollar ISDAFIX benchmark. The CFTC’s order, which both files and settles the charges against BofA, alleges that, beginning in January 2007 and continuing through December 2012, the bank “made false reports… Read More >>
CFTC Alleges Mizuho Trader Tested Strategies via Spoofing
Tokyo-based Mizuho Bank, Ltd. has settled with the CFTC over allegations that it was involved in “multiple acts of spoofing in a variety of futures contracts” as a means of testing market reactions to certain types of orders. The charges are about instruments based upon U.S. Treasury notes and Eurodollars and transacted via the Chicago… Read More >>
ICAP Capital Markets Penalized $50M in ISDAFIX Case
CFTC officials have settled a benchmark manipulation case against ICAP Capital Markets (ICAP) via an order that requires the firm, now known as Intercapital Capital Markets, to pay a $50 million civil monetary penalty, officials say The regulator is alleging that the firm, a NEX subsidiary company, used certain brokers to help facilitate attempts by… Read More >>
