- Chief Compliance Officer and VP of Legal Affairs, Arrow Electronics
By 
Aaron Nicodemus2024-09-17T18:01:00
Fines for off-channel communications use by employees just keep on coming, with 12 municipal advisory firms fined a total of $1.3 million in the latest Securities and Exchange Commission sweep.
Kaufman Hall & Associates, together with Ponder & Company (which Kaufman Hall acquired in May 2023), drew the biggest fine ($325,000) from the SEC in this enforcement sweep, although it was really one fine that applied to two companies.
PFM Financial Advisors and Specialized Public Finance Inc. were each fined $250,000.
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Regulators continue to hammer firms with fines for violating rules regarding the use of unapproved communication methods by employees, issuing $120 million in fines this week. And for the first time, two firms were not fined because they self-reported their violations.
Six credit rating agencies will pay $49 million in fines to the Securities and Exchange Commission for allowing their employees to communicate on company business using nonapproved communication channels like Whats App and WeChat.
Two regulators doled out more than $477 million in fines on a new group of broker-dealers, investment advisers, and swaps dealers that failed to maintain and preserve the electronic communications of their employees, bringing total such fines issued since 2021 to $3.2 billion.
USAA Federal Savings Bank has been hit with its third cease and desist order from the Treasury Department’s Office of the Comptroller of the Currency in the past five years for failing to correct unsafe and unsound banking practices.
Becton Dickinson medical device company will pay $175 million for “repeatedly” misleading investors about its Alaris infusion pump, a product the company knew was flawed and was sold without the required patient-safety approvals, the Securities and Exchange Commission said.
The Securities and Exchange Commission charged bankrupt fashion retailer Express with failing to disclose nearly $1 million in perks to a former chief executive, but did not levy a financial penalty thanks to its cooperation, the SEC said.
