Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Inc.

Merrill Lynch was fined $825,000 for failing to reasonably supervise the execution timeliness of customer orders. The findings stated that the firm’s supervisory system, including its WSPs, was not reasonably designed in so far as the firm only reviewed the execution timeliness of orders processed through the firm’s electronic order systems from the time the orders were routed to a market center for further handling or execution and the final execution time.

The firm did not conduct a supervisory review of how long it took the firm’s electronic order systems to process and route the orders to a market center. By omitting the electronic order systems’ order handling time from order receipt to the route time to a market center from its supervisory reviews, the firm failed to reasonably supervise whether it made every effort to execute marketable customer orders that it received fully and promptly.

The findings also stated that the firm failed to reasonably supervise the accuracy of memoranda for electronic orders. The firm’s supervisory system, including its WSPs, was not reasonably designed to achieve compliance with SEC and FINRA recordkeeping requirements in so far as the firm did not conduct supervisory reviews to ensure the accuracy of information recorded on its order memoranda for retail brokerage equity orders the firm received electronically.