{"id":3660,"date":"2016-06-23T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-06-23T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stockbrokerfraudblog.blawgcloud.com\/2016\/06\/merrill_lynch_to_pay_415m_for"},"modified":"2022-08-26T09:25:38","modified_gmt":"2022-08-26T14:25:38","slug":"merrill-lynch-to-pay-415m-for","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/blog\/merrill-lynch-to-pay-415m-for\/","title":{"rendered":"Merrill Lynch to Pay $425M to the SEC and $5M to FINRA for Misusing Customer Funds and Misleading Investors About Structured Notes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Merrill Lynch<\/a> will pay $415M to resolve civil charges accusing the firm of misusing customer funds and not safeguarding customer securities from creditor claims. According to the Securities and Exchange Commission, the firm violated the regulator’s Customer Protection Rule by using customer funds inappropriately instead of depositing them in a reserve account.<\/p>\n

Instead, said the SEC, Merrill Lynch<\/a> took part in complex options trades that artificially lowered how much in customer funds needed to be in the reserve account. This liberated billions of dollars a week from \u201909 to \u201912. The firm used the funds for its own trades. If Merrill had failed with these trades there would have been a substantial shortfall in the reserve account.<\/p>\n

Merrill Lynch, which is owned by Bank of America (BAC)<\/a>, has admitted wrongdoing as part of the settlement.<\/p>\n

The SEC said that the firm violated the Customer Protection Rule when it didn\u2019t abide by the requirement that customer securities that had been fully paid for be kept in lien-free accounts and protected from third parties claims in the event that Merrill Lynch were to collapse. Such a failure would have exposed customers to great risk and there would have been uncertainty as to whether they\u2019d be able to get their securities back.
\nAlso, contends the Commission, from \u201909 to \u201915, Merrill held up to $58B of customer securities a day in a clearing account that was subject to a general lien to be handled by its clearing bank.<\/p>\n

Continue Reading \u203a<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Merrill Lynch will pay $415M to resolve civil charges accusing the firm of misusing customer funds and not safeguarding customer securities from creditor claims. According to the Securities and Exchange Commission, the firm violated the regulator’s Customer Protection Rule by using customer funds inappropriately instead of depositing them in a reserve account. Instead, said the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3751,3752,3800,3894],"tags":[3013,3093],"class_list":["post-3660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bank-of-america","category-financial-firms","category-merrill-lynch","category-structured-products","tag-bank-of-america","tag-merrill-lynch"],"yoast_head":"\nMerrill Lynch Pays Over $425M In Fines For Misusing Customer Funds | SSEK Law<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Merrill Lynch will pay $415M to resolve civil charges accusing the firm of misusing customer funds and not safeguarding customer securities.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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