Interactive Brokers LLC

Barclays Capital, Interactive Brokers, Lebenthal & Co., and Advisors Asset Management Pay $105,000 in FINRA Fines Related to Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board Violations

Published on: March 30, 2013 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority is ordering four financial firms to pay $105,000 in fines for Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board violations related to political contribution, pricing, supervision, and other rules. The SRO noted the fines in its monthly disciplinary report.

One firm, Interactive Brokers LLC, must pay $7,500 for trade reporting violations related to Rule G-14’s requirements. The financial firm is accused of not reporting 60 sale and purchase transactions to the Real Time Transaction Reporting System within 15 minutes of their execution during 2010’s third quarter.

A second firm, Barclays Capital Inc, has to pay $15,000 for violating rules G-14, G-8, and G-27. The firm purportedly did not report 40 transactions to the RTRS, also within 15 minutes of their execution during 2011’s second quarter. It is accused of not reporting the correct trade time of 66 transactions.

HSBC Securities, Citigroup Global Markets Inc., UBS Securities LLC, Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Inc., and Interactive Brokers LLC Among Firms Disciplined by NYSER

Published on: October 21, 2007 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

The New York Stock Exchange Regulation Inc. is disciplining nine companies and eight people for numerous violation. The firms disciplined include:

Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith: Fined $100,000 for violating rule 123c about 480 times when it cancelled or submitted securities orders after the mandatory cutoff period.

Citigroup Global markets Inc: Find $300,000-half of this to be payed to NASDAQ; the other half to be paid to NYSE. The firm made inaccurate reports about short interest positions in securities that were listed on the NYSE.

Interactive Brokers LLC Sanctioned for Failing to Supervise Its Compliance Staff

Published on: October 15, 2007 | by Shepherd Smith Edwards & Kantas, LLP

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) ordered Interactive Brokers LLC (IBL) to relinquish $175,000 in commissions, for failing to properly supervise its compliance employees while handling a commodity futures trading account. The National Futures Association (NFA) recently fined IBL $125,000 regarding the same matter and for failing to maintain adequate books and records.

IBL is a discount direct access brokerage firm and registered futures commission merchant (FCM) headquartered in Greenwich, Connecticut. According to the order, an account was maintained at IBL in the name of Kevin Steele, a Canadian who used the account to defraud more than 200 Canadian, German, and US citizens of over $8 million in a commodity pool fraud that was the subject of an earlier CFTC enforcement action.

The CFTC found that, from February 2003 through May 2005, IBL accepted 135 third-party deposits in the form of wire transfers and checks totaling $7.7 million into Steele’s personal account, but did not have procedures reasonably designed to detect the deposit of third-party funds in an individual trading account. The frequency and magnitude of deposits and withdrawals to Steele’s account, relative to his stated liquid net worth, and the pattern of deposits followed by withdrawals suggested that Steele might be operating as an unregistered commodity pool operator.