BMO Capital Markets’ U.S. affiliate has settled with U.S. regulators over allegations that it failed to provide them with accurate trading data.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced on Monday that BMO Capital Markets Corp. has agreed to pay US$1.95 million to settle charges that it provided the SEC with incomplete and inaccurate trading data, known as “blue sheet data.”
Regulators use the data to uncover improper trading, such as insider trading and market manipulation.
The SEC also settled similar allegations against U.S. firm Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc., which agreed to pay US$2.7 million.
Both firms settled the cases without admitting or denying the regulator’s allegations, and the SEC said the firms also took remedial action to correct the sources of the reporting errors.
The reporting failures were largely due to undetected coding errors that, for BMO, resulted in it submitting missing or incorrect data for approximately 5.4 million transactions, the SEC noted.
“Firms that do not provide accurate and complete data in response to our requests undermine our efforts to detect wrongdoing and protect Main Street investors,” said Kelly Gibson, associate director of the SEC’s Philadelphia office.