(Bloomberg) -- US regulators levied more than $118 million in penalties against several financial firms for failing to keep employees’ electronic communications, the latest fallout from the so-called WhatsApp investigations.
The largest penalty, totaling $42 million, was paid by Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce and two of its affiliates, according to statements by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Stifel, Nicolaus & Co. agreed to pay $35 million to the SEC, as did Invesco Distributors and Invesco Advisers.
The firms admitted the facts and have begun making internal changes, according to both the SEC and CFTC.
“Today’s enforcement actions reflect the range of remedies that parties may face for violating the recordkeeping requirements of the federal securities laws,” Gurbir Grewal, director of the SEC’s enforcement division, said in a statement Tuesday. “Widespread and longstanding failures, including where those failures potentially hinder the Commission’s investor protection function by compromising a firm’s response to SEC subpoenas, may result in robust civil penalties.”
Financial firms are required to monitor and save communications involving their business to head off improper conduct. Tuesday’s penalties add to the more than $2.5 billion that big banks previously agreed to pay the SEC and the CFTC to settle similar investigations into use of text messages on personal phones and WhatsApp.
“We respect the decisions of the SEC and CFTC on these matters,” a spokesperson for the bank said in a statement. “Throughout this process, CIBC offered its full cooperation to both regulators and took immediate steps to implement remedies internally.”
An Invesco spokesperson saith the firm “takes compliance matters incredibly seriously and we are pleased to have resolved this matter,” adding that Invesco has taken “significant steps to further strengthen the firm’s compliance processes related to record keeping electronic communications.”
Lawyers for Stifel didn’t immediately respond to messages seeking comment.
The SEC’s full list of the fines and firms included:
- $2 million from Glazer Capital
- $1.5 million from Intesa Sanpaolo IMI Securities Corp.
- $1.25 million from Canaccord Genuity
- $750,000 from Regions Securities
- $400,000 from Alpaca Securities
- $325,000 from Focused Wealth Management
Qatalyst Partners was included in Tuesday’s statement, but the SEC said the firm self-reported the conduct and therefore wasn’t ordered to pay a monetary penalty. On Monday, the SEC found Atom Investors violated recordkeeping requirements regarding off-channel communications, but didn’t issue a fine, citing self-reporting, remediation and cooperation with another investigation.
A lawyer for Alpaca declined to comment. Lawyers for the other firms didn’t immediately respond to messages seeking comment.
(Adds names of more firms that settled with regulators.)
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