Merrill Lynch to Pay $415 Million to Settle SEC Accounts Probe
June 23 2016 - 10:26AM
Dow Jones News
By Aruna Viswanatha
Bank of America Corp.'s Merrill Lynch unit will pay $415 million
to resolve accusations from the Securities and Exchange Commission
that it misused customer cash, the agency said Thursday.
The brokerage should have deposited the customer funds in a
reserve account, but instead engaged in complex options trades that
artificially reduced the amount it needed to deposit, freeing up
billions of dollars each week to finance trading activities, the
SEC said.
Merrill admitted to wrongdoing in the trades, which occurred
between 2009 and 2012, the agency said.
The SEC also sued the firm's head of regulatory reporting, , in
connection with the case.
--
William Tirrell
Mr. Tirrell is disputing the charges.
Merrill Lynch also separately agreed to pay a $10 million
penalty to resolve an SEC case accusing it of misleading customers
on structured notes. It also paid an additional $5 million to
settle a similar case from the Financial Industry Regulatory
Authority, the Wall Street regulator said Thursday.
Write to Aruna Viswanatha at Aruna.Viswanatha@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
June 23, 2016 11:11 ET (15:11 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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