Three broker-dealers — Citadel Securities, Natixis Securities Americas and MUFG Securities Americas — will pay a total of $6.15 million to settle charges that they provided inadequate and incomplete information in SEC "blue sheet" trading and account holder information.
The Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday said the three firms "over a period of several years" submitted inaccurate data, incorrect order execution times, and false identification of exchange codes and transaction types, according to a news release.
The firms admitted the findings, the SEC said, and agreed to pay penalties of $3.5 million for Citadel Securities, $1.25 million for Natixis and $1.4 million for MUFG.
Citadel Securities submitted incorrect data for nearly 80 million trades, the SEC said; Natixis, about 150,000 trades; and MUFG, about 650,000 trades.
"These deficiencies largely stemmed from undetected coding errors," the SEC said.
In the release, Kelly Gibson, associate regional director for enforcement in the SEC's Philadelphia office, said blue-sheet data is used "to detect wrongdoing and protect Main Street investors through our enforcement efforts. Firms must be diligent and take seriously their obligations to provide accurate and complete data in response to our requests."
