Blog
December 20, 2017
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) announced that it has fined Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated $1.4 million for failing to establish a reasonable supervisory system and procedures to identify and evaluate extended settlement transactions, and for related rule violations. Extended settlement transactions have a longer time between trade and settlement than routine securities […]
December 15, 2017
The firm is investigating Mark Heiden, a Wedbush Securities broker. Heiden is accused of using sales practices that were related to the overconcentration of energy related stocks investments in customer accounts. These investments included Energy XXI Bermuda Ltd.(EXXI): Energy XXI was an independent oil and natural gas development and production company whose growth strategy emphasized […]
November 20, 2017
An AWC was issued in which the firm was censured and required to provide FINRA with a remediation plan to remediate eligible customers who qualified for, but did not receive, an applicable mutual fund sales-charge waiver. As part of this settlement, the firm agreed to pay restitution to eligible customers, which is estimated to total […]
November 18, 2017
An AWC was issued in which the firm was censured and fined $250,000. Without admitting or denying the findings, the firm consented to the sanctions and to the entry of findings that it failed to supervise certain of its registered representatives to ensure their compliance with FINRA rules relating to outside business activities, private securities […]
November 15, 2017
An AWC was issued in which the firm was censured and fined $110,000. FINRA Issues AWC Concerning Wedbush Securities Without admitting or denying the findings, the firm consented to the sanctions and to the entry of findings that it engaged in trading unit aggregation but failed to ensure that individual traders were assigned to only […]