The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Thursday imposed fines ranging from US$100,000 to US$500,000 against 13 investment advisory firms after it found that they violated securities laws by spreading the false information provided by an investment management firm.

The firms consented to the SEC’s orders without admitting or denying its findings.

An enforcement sweep found that the 13 firms “accepted and negligently relied upon claims by F-Squared Investments that its AlphaSector strategy for investing in exchange-traded funds had outperformed the S&P Index for several years,” the SEC says in a statement.

The firms repeated F-Squared’s claims while recommending the product to their clients without independently verifying those claims. Back in 2014, F-Squared agreed to pay US$35 million and admit wrongdoing to settle charges that it defrauded investors through false performance advertising.

“When an investment adviser echoes another firm’s performance claims in its own advertisements, it must verify the information first rather than merely accept it as fact,” says Andrew Ceresney, director of the SEC enforcement division, in a statement. “These advisers negligently passed many of F-Squared’s claims onto their own clients, who were consequently relying upon false and misleading information when making investment decisions.”

Separately on Thursday, the SEC adopted rule amendments to enhance the reporting and disclosure provided by investment advisors both to clients and regulators. Among other things, the rule changes will require advisors to maintain additional records related to the calculation and distribution of performance information. They will also require investment advisors to provide additional information on their separately managed account business and other aspects of their advisory business, including their branch office operations and the use of social media.

“These amendments are an important step in a series of rulemakings to enhance the SEC’s monitoring and regulation of the asset management industry,” says Mary Jo White, SEC chairwoman, in a statement. “Requiring investment advisers to report this additional information will provide investors and the commission with a better understanding of the risk profile of each advisor and the industry as a whole.”

The amendments will become effective 60 days after publication in the Federal Register, and advisors will need to begin complying with them on Oct. 1, 2017.