SEC Approves Funding Amendment to National Market System Plan Governing the Consolidated Audit Trail
Washington, D.C.--(Newsfile Corp. - September 6, 2023) - The Securities and Exchange Commission today approved an amendment to the National Market System Plan governing the Consolidated Audit Trail (CAT) (the “CAT NMS Plan”) to adopt a revised funding model, called the “Executed Share Model,” for the CAT and establish a fee schedule for CAT fees for the self-regulatory organizations that are participants to the CAT NMS Plan in accordance with the Executed Share Model. “Prior to CAT’s...
2023-09-06 11:56 AM EDT
SEC Charges Five Advisory Firms for Custody Rule Violations
Washington, D.C.--(Newsfile Corp. - September 5, 2023) - The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced charges against five investment advisers for failing to comply with requirements related to the safekeeping of client assets. Three of the firms were also charged with failing to timely update SEC disclosures regarding audits of their private fund clients’ financial statements. All five advisory firms have agreed to settle the SEC’s charges and to pay more than $500,000 in combined...
2023-09-05 2:23 PM EDT
SEC Directs Equity Exchanges and FINRA to Improve Governance of Market Data Plans
Washington, D.C.--(Newsfile Corp. - September 1, 2023) - The Securities and Exchange Commission today issued an order directing the equity exchanges and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) (the participants) to file a new national market system plan (NMS plan) to replace the three existing national market system plans that govern the public dissemination of real-time, consolidated equity market data for national market system stocks. The order follows a May 6, 2020, Commission...
2023-09-01 11:23 AM EDT
SEC Charges Citigroup Global Markets Inc. with Recordkeeping Failures Concerning Underwriting Expenses
Washington, D.C.--(Newsfile Corp. - August 29, 2023) - The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced settled cease-and-desist proceedings against broker-dealer Citigroup Global Markets Inc. (CGMI) for willfully violating recordkeeping requirements concerning expenses that the firm incurred in connection with its underwriting business. Recordkeeping requirements of the federal securities laws require broker-dealers to make and keep current certain books and records, including ledgers...
2023-08-29 4:12 PM EDT
SEC Charges LA-Based Media and Entertainment Co. Impact Theory for Unregistered Offering of NFTs
Washington, D.C.--(Newsfile Corp. - August 28, 2023) - The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged Impact Theory, LLC, a media and entertainment company headquartered in Los Angeles, with conducting an unregistered offering of crypto asset securities in the form of purported non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Impact Theory raised approximately $30 million from hundreds of investors, including investors across the United States, through the offering. According to the SEC’s order, from...
2023-08-28 11:10 AM EDT
SEC Announces First Fee Rate Advisory for Fiscal Year 2024
Washington, D.C.--(Newsfile Corp. - August 25, 2023) - The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that the fees that public companies and other issuers pay to register their securities with the Commission will increase from $110.20 per million dollars to $147.60 per million dollars, effective Oct. 1. The new fee rate will be applicable to the registration of securities under Section 6(b) of the Securities Act of 1933, the repurchase of securities under Section 13(e) of the...
2023-08-25 1:55 PM EDT
SEC Awards Whistleblower More Than $18 Million
Washington, D.C.--(Newsfile Corp. - August 25, 2023) - The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced an award of more than $18 million to a whistleblower whose information and assistance led to a successful SEC enforcement action. After initially reporting misconduct internally, the whistleblower submitted information to the Commission that prompted the opening of an investigation. The whistleblower thereafter provided additional helpful information and substantial cooperation that...
2023-08-25 11:05 AM EDT
SEC Charges 3M with Foreign Corrupt Practices Act Violations Relating to China Subsidiary
Washington, D.C.--(Newsfile Corp. - August 25, 2023) - The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that 3M Company agreed to pay more than $6.5 million to resolve charges that it violated the books and records and internal controls provisions of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). The SEC’s order finds that employees of a 3M wholly owned subsidiary based in China arranged for Chinese government officials employed by state-owned health care facilities to attend overseas...
2023-08-25 9:24 AM EDT
Wells Fargo Settles with SEC for Charging Excessive Advisory Fees
Washington, D.C.--(Newsfile Corp. - August 25, 2023) - The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged Wells Fargo Clearing Services LLC and Wells Fargo Advisors Financial Network LLC (collectively, Wells Fargo) for overcharging more than 10,900 investment advisory accounts more than $26.8 million in advisory fees. Wells Fargo agreed to pay a $35 million civil penalty to settle the SEC’s charges. According to the SEC’s order, certain financial advisers from Wells Fargo and its...
2023-08-25 9:11 AM EDT
SEC Charges Former Attorney at U.S.-Based Global Law Firm with Insider Trading
Washington, D.C.--(Newsfile Corp. - August 23, 2023) - The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced insider trading charges against Romero Cabral da Costa Neto for trading based on material, nonpublic information concerning a client of the global law firm where he worked as a visiting attorney from Brazil. According to the SEC’s complaint, in 2023, during Costa’s one-year term of employment as a visiting attorney at the law firm, he accessed confidential information about the law...
2023-08-23 4:33 PM EDT
SEC Charges Former New Jersey Corrections Officer with Crypto Fraud Scheme Targeting Law Enforcement Personnel
Washington, D.C.--(Newsfile Corp. - August 23, 2023) - The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged former New Jersey State Correctional Police Officer John A. DeSalvo with fraudulently raising funds through the unregistered offering of the Blazar Token, a crypto asset security he created but that collapsed in May 2022. The SEC also charged DeSalvo with misappropriating investor funds, much of which he sent to his personal crypto asset wallets and used to pay for a bathroom...
2023-08-23 2:44 PM EDT
SEC Reopens Comment Period for Enhanced Safeguarding Rule for Registered Investment Advisers Proposal
Washington, D.C.--(Newsfile Corp. - August 23, 2023) - The Securities and Exchange Commission today reopened the comment period on its proposed rule that would redesignate and amend the current custody rule under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940 to enhance protections of customer assets managed by registered investment advisers, which was proposed by the Commission on February 15, 2023. The initial comment period ended on May 8, 2023. The reopened comment period will allow interested...
2023-08-23 1:32 PM EDT
SEC Enhances the Regulation of Private Fund Advisers
Washington, D.C.--(Newsfile Corp. - August 23, 2023) - The Securities and Exchange Commission today adopted new rules and rule amendments to enhance the regulation of private fund advisers and update the existing compliance rule that applies to all investment advisers. The new rules and amendments are designed to protect private fund investors by increasing transparency, competition, and efficiency in the private funds market. “Private funds and their advisers play an important role in nearly...
2023-08-23 1:28 PM EDT
SEC Adopts Amendments to Exemption From National Securities Association Membership
Washington, D.C.--(Newsfile Corp. - August 23, 2023) - The Securities and Exchange Commission today adopted rule amendments that narrow the exemption from Section 15(b)(8) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, which requires any broker or dealer registered with the Commission to become a member of a national securities association unless the broker or dealer effects transactions in securities solely on an exchange of which it is a member. The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority Inc....
2023-08-23 11:47 AM EDT
SEC Charges FinTech Investment Adviser Titan for Misrepresenting Hypothetical Performance of Investments and other Violations
Washington, D.C.--(Newsfile Corp. - August 21, 2023) - The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced charges against Titan Global Capital Management USA LLC, a New York-based FinTech investment adviser, for using hypothetical performance metrics in advertisements that were misleading. The SEC also charged Titan with multiple compliance failures that led to misleading disclosures about custody of clients’ crypto assets, the use of improper “hedge clauses” in client agreements, the...
2023-08-21 10:08 AM EDT
Colombian Conglomerate Grupo Aval and Its Bank Subsidiary to Pay $40 Million to Settle FCPA Violations
Washington D.C.--(Newsfile Corp. - August 10, 2023) - The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged Colombian conglomerate Grupo Aval Acciones y Valores S.A., aka Grupo Aval S.A., and its bank subsidiary, Corporación Financiera Colombiana S.A. (Corficolombiana), with violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). Grupo Aval, whose shares are traded on the New York Stock Exchange, agreed to pay $40 million to settle the SEC charges. According to the SEC’s order, Corficolombiana and...
2023-08-10 6:01 PM EDT
Crypto Asset Trading Platform Bittrex and Former CEO to Settle SEC Charges for Operating an Unregistered Exchange, Broker, and Clearing Agency
Washington D.C.--(Newsfile Corp. - August 10, 2023) - The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that crypto asset trading platform Bittrex Inc. and its co-founder and former CEO, William Shihara, agreed to settle charges that they operated an unregistered national securities exchange, broker, and clearing agency. Bittrex Inc.’s foreign affiliate, Bittrex Global GmbH, also agreed to settle charges that it failed to register as a national securities exchange. As alleged in the...
2023-08-10 5:56 PM EDT
SEC Charges 11 Wall Street Firms with Widespread Recordkeeping Failures
Washington, D.C.--(Newsfile Corp. - August 8, 2023) - The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced charges against 10 firms in their capacity as broker-dealers and one dually registered broker-dealer and investment adviser for widespread and longstanding failures by the firms and their employees to maintain and preserve electronic communications. The firms admitted the facts set forth in their respective SEC orders. They acknowledged that their conduct violated recordkeeping...
2023-08-08 8:17 AM EDT
Fund Administrator Charged For Missing Red Flags
Washington, D.C.--(Newsfile Corp. - August 7, 2023) - The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced settled charges against Theorem Fund Services LLC (TFS), a fund administrator based in Boca Raton, Florida, for failing to respond to red flags relating to a fraud against a private fund and its investors. According to the SEC’s order, TFS provided administration services to a fund managed by EIA All Weather Alpha Fund Partners and Andrew M. Middlebrooks, both of whom the SEC charged...
2023-08-07 10:43 AM EDT
SEC Awards More Than $104 Million to Seven Whistleblowers
Washington, D.C.--(Newsfile Corp. - August 4, 2023) - The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced awards of more than $104 million to seven individuals whose information and assistance led to a successful SEC enforcement action and related actions brought by another agency. Today’s combined award is the fourth largest in the SEC’s whistleblower program’s history. The seven whistleblowers were composed of two sets of joint claimants and three single claimants, and each provided...
2023-08-04 11:20 AM EDT