{"id":85286,"date":"2023-07-12T00:13:51","date_gmt":"2023-07-12T04:13:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hedgeco.net\/news\/?p=85286"},"modified":"2023-07-11T23:31:13","modified_gmt":"2023-07-12T03:31:13","slug":"merrill-lynch-and-parent-company-charged-for-failing-to-file-suspicious-activity-reports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/07\/2023\/merrill-lynch-and-parent-company-charged-for-failing-to-file-suspicious-activity-reports.html","title":{"rendered":"Merrill Lynch and Parent Company Charged for Failing to File Suspicious Activity Reports"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>(HedgeCo.Net) The Securities and Exchange Commission has announced charges against Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner &amp; Smith Incorporated and its parent company BAC North America Holding Co. (BACNAH) for failing to file hundreds of Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) from 2009 to late 2019. Merrill Lynch agreed to pay a <strong>$6 million penalty<\/strong> to settle the SEC charges and, in a parallel action, Merrill Lynch agreed to pay a separate <strong>$6 million<\/strong> <strong>fine<\/strong> to settle charges brought by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According to the SEC\u2019s order, BACNAH assumed responsibility for creating and implementing Merrill Lynch\u2019s SAR policies and procedures and for filing Merrill Lynch\u2019s SARs. Over the course of a decade, however, BACNAH improperly used a $25,000 threshold instead of the required $5,000 threshold for reporting suspicious transactions or attempted transactions where a suspect may have been seeking to use Merrill Lynch to facilitate criminal activity and could not be identified. As a result, BACNAH caused Merrill Lynch\u2019s failure to file hundreds of required SARs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201c<strong><em>Broker-dealers have a critical obligation to report suspicious activity in their accounts,\u201d said Katharine E. Zoladz, Co-Acting Regional Director of the Los Angeles Regional Office. \u201cMerrill Lynch and BACNAH did not file hundreds of Merrill Lynch SARs because they failed to comply with one of the most basic requirements for a SAR program.<\/em><\/strong>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The SEC\u2019s order finds that Merrill Lynch violated the books and records provisions of Section 17(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 17a-8 thereunder and that BACNAH caused those violations. Without admitting or denying the SEC\u2019s findings, Merrill Lynch and BACNAH agreed to cease and desist from committing or causing violations of those provisions, and Merrill Lynch also agreed to a censure and the aforementioned $6 million civil penalty.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(HedgeCo.Net) The Securities and Exchange Commission has announced charges against Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner &amp; Smith Incorporated and its parent company BAC North America Holding Co. (BACNAH) for failing to file hundreds of Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) from 2009 to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,3,16048],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-85286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hedgeco-networks-press-releases","category-hedgeco-news","category-hedgecovest-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85286"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85286\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85287,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85286\/revisions\/85287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}