FINRA Fines Goldman Sachs Execution & Clearing, L.P. $1.8 Million for OATS and Trade Reporting Failures

WASHINGTON — The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) announced today that it has fined Goldman Sachs Execution & Clearing, L.P. $1.8 million for systemic Order Audit Trail System (OATS) reporting violations spanning a period of more than eight years, failure to accurately submit required trade reports to the appropriate FINRA Trade Reporting Facility (TRF), and related supervisory failures.

Thomas Gira, Executive Vice President of FINRA Market Regulation, said, "OATS data is integral to FINRA's automated market surveillance program to detect manipulative activity and other potential violations of FINRA rules and federal securities laws. It is critical that firms have the necessary systems and supervision in place to ensure compliance with their OATS and trade reporting obligations."

FINRA rules require firms to transmit all applicable order information to OATS in a complete and accurate manner. FINRA found that Goldman Sachs Execution & Clearing failed to transmit a substantial number of order-related events to OATS for its Alternative Trading System (ATS) for approximately seven years, and the firm transmitted inaccurate data for a large number of order-related events for more than eight years. In addition, even though Goldman Sachs Execution & Clearing's ATS captured order event times in milliseconds, it failed to report order event timestamps in milliseconds for a 10-month period. The firm also submitted a large number of inaccurate, incomplete or improperly formatted trade reports that did not report execution timestamps in milliseconds for a three-month period. During the period of review, Goldman Sachs Execution & Clearing did not have adequate systems and controls in place to detect and prevent the violations.

In concluding this settlement, Goldman Sachs Execution & Clearing, L.P. neither admitted nor denied the charges, but consented to the entry of FINRA's findings.

Investors can obtain more information about, and the disciplinary record of, any FINRA-registered broker or brokerage firm by using FINRA's BrokerCheck. FINRA makes BrokerCheck available at no charge. In 2014, members of the public used this service to conduct 18.9 million reviews of broker or firm records. Investors can access BrokerCheck at www.finra.org/brokercheck or by calling (800) 289-9999. Investors may find copies of this disciplinary action as well as other disciplinary documents in FINRA's Disciplinary Actions Online database.

FINRA, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, is the largest independent regulator for all securities firms doing business in the United States. FINRA is dedicated to investor protection and market integrity through effective and efficient regulation and complementary compliance and technology-based services. FINRA touches virtually every aspect of the securities business – from registering and educating all industry participants to examining securities firms, writing rules, enforcing those rules and the federal securities laws, and informing and educating the investing public. In addition, FINRA provides surveillance and other regulatory services for equities and options markets, as well as trade reporting and other industry utilities. FINRA also administers the largest dispute resolution forum for investors and firms. For more information, please visit www.finra.org.