- Chief Compliance Officer and VP of Legal Affairs, Arrow Electronics
By 
Aaron Nicodemus2024-09-09T15:34:00
Seven public companies will pay a total of $3 million in fines for requiring employees to sign agreements containing provisions that impeded their ability to report misconduct to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
The SEC announced the fines Monday, alleging that the firms used “employment, separation, and other agreements that violated rules prohibiting actions to impede whistleblowers from reporting potential misconduct to the SEC.”
The firms fined were Acadia Healthcare Company will pay nearly $1.4 million, a.k.a. Brands Holding Corp., a fashion retailer, will pay nearly $400,000, AppFolio will pay $692,250, IDEX Corp., a manufacturer, will pay $75,000, LSB Industries, a chemical manufacturer, will pay $156,000, Smart for Life, a wellness retailer, will pay $19,500 and TransUnion, a credit reporting company, will pay $312,000.
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Broker-dealer Nationwide Planning Associates and two affiliated investment advisers impeded potential whistleblowers from reporting misconduct to the Securities and Exchange Commission and have agreed to settle the charges for a combined $240,000.
A subsidiary of JPMorgan Chase will pay an $18 million fine to the Securities and Exchange Commission for allegedly violating the agency’s whistleblower protection rule in hundreds of settlement agreements with clients and customers.
New York-based investment adviser D. E. Shaw & Co. will pay a $10 million penalty to settle charges brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission that the company raised impediments to whistleblowing by employees.
Capital One promised very high interest rates on millions of savings accounts but the bank didn’t deliver, losing customers more than $2 billion, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau alleged.
Robinhood, a disruptive force in the market for Main Street investors but also a serial offender of securities laws, will pay a total of $45 million to settle numerous violations of SEC rules and regulations by two of its broker-dealers.
A broker-dealer subsidiary of Toronto-based BMO Financial Group will pay nearly $41 million in penalties to the Securities and Exchange Commission to settle allegations that its traders issued misleading disclosures on bonds for three years, causing $19 million in harm to its customers.
