News Releases & Statements

WASHINGTON—FINRA today released its 2020 Risk Monitoring and Examination Priorities Letter, highlighting new priorities as well as identifying areas of ongoing concern that FINRA will continue to focus on in the coming year.

WASHINGTON—FINRA announced today that it has ordered Oppenheimer & Co. Inc. to pay more than $3.8 million in restitution to customers who incurred potentially excessive sales charges caused by early rollovers of Unit Investment Trusts (UITs). FINRA also fined the firm $800,000 for failing to reasonably supervise early UIT rollovers.

Firms Did Not Know Essential Facts About Customers With Custodial Accounts Established Pursuant to the Uniform Transfers to Minors Act (UTMA) and Uniform Gifts to Minors Act (UGMA) WASHINGTON – FINRA announced today that it has sanctioned five firms—Citigroup Global Markets Inc.; J.P. Morgan Securities LLC; LPL Financial LLC; Morgan Stanley Smith Barney LLC; and Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated—for failing to reasonably supervise compliance with FINRA Rule 2090, FINRA’s “Know Your Customer” rule.

WASHINGTON—FINRA, Cboe Global Markets, The Nasdaq Stock Market LLC, the New York Stock Exchange, and their affiliated Exchanges (collectively, “Exchanges”) today announced that they censured Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC, and fined the firm a total of $6.5 million for supervisory violations and violations of various provisions of Rule 15c3-5 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (known as the Market Access Rule). The fine was apportioned among FINRA and the Exchanges.

WASHINGTON—FINRA announced today that it has fined Robinhood Financial, LLC $1.25 million for best execution violations related to its customers’ equity orders and related supervisory failures that spanned from October 2016 to November 2017. As part of the settlement, Robinhood also agreed to retain an independent consultant to conduct a comprehensive review of the firm’s systems and procedures related to best execution.

WASHINGTON — Samuel Lek, former Chief Executive Officer of Lek Securities Corporation (Lek Securities), has been permanently barred from the securities industry in all capacities, and Lek Securities was fined $900,000 for violating, among other things, FINRA and Exchange supervisory rules, and Rule 15c3-5 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (the Market Access Rule). The actions were taken by FINRA, along with The NASDAQ Stock Market LLC, the New York Stock Exchange LLC, Cboe Global Markets, and certain of their affiliated Exchanges (collectively, Exchanges).

Board Approves Rule Proposals, Reaffirms Financial Guiding Principles WASHINGTON – FINRA’s Board of Governors met on Dec. 4-5 at FINRA’s offices in New York, where it approved two rule proposals, received several operational updates and reaffirmed FINRA’s Financial Guiding Principles.

2020 Exams Will Be Conducted Under Unified Program WASHINGTON—FINRA announced today the senior leadership team under the new examination and risk monitoring structure within the organization. This marks the consolidation of FINRA’s three exam functions into a single, unified program—a process that began in October 2018.

Number of Women With Non-Retirement Investments Remains Stagnant, While Ownership Among Men, Millennials and African-Americans Increases WASHINGTON – Knowledge of key investing concepts among investors is low, with two-thirds of U.S.

WASHINGTON – Beginning today, FINRA is expanding its ongoing transparency initiative for the over-the-counter (OTC) equity market by publishing new data about OTC trading volume occurring outside of alternative trading systems (ATSs). The data is available free of charge on FINRA’s website. For the first time, FINRA will publish: