DriveWealth Institutional LLC fka Cuttone & Co., LLC was fined $100,000 for violating Rule 203(b)(1) of Regulation SHO of the Exchange Act by failing to obtain locates for short sales.

Jefferies LLC was fined a total of $200,000 for failing to take reasonable steps to establish that the intermarket sweep orders (ISOs) it routed met the requirements set forth in Rule 600(b)(30) of Regulation NMS.

E*TRADE Securities was fined a total of $350,000 for failing to establish and maintain a supervisory system reasonably designed to detect potentially manipulative trading by its customers.

RBC Capital Markets, LLC was fined $2,600,000 for failing to report, and inaccurately reported, over-the-counter (OTC) options positions to the Large Options Positions Reporting System (LOPR).

Intesa Sanpaolo IMI Securities Corp. was fined $650,000 for failing to establish an AML compliance program reasonably designed to detect, monitor, and cause the reporting of potentially suspicious activity relating to low-priced securities transactions.

Glendale Securities, Inc. was fined $155,000 and ordered to retain a consultant to review and revise its anti-money laundering (AML) related procedures to appropriately tailor them to its microcap stock liquidation business model.

J.P. Morgan Clearing Corporation nka J.P. Morgan Securities LLC was fined a total of $300,000 for failing to comply with SEC Regulation SHO Rule 204 in that the firm attempted to allocate certain fail to deliver positions caused by two introducing broker-dealers.

Ascendiant Capital Markets, LLC was fined $35,000 for violating Rule 203(b)(1) of Regulation SHO of the Exchange Act by impermissibly relying on the market maker exception and failing to comply with the locate requirement of Regulation SHO.

Dealerweb was fined $250,000 for not correctly calculating its volume thresholds as a percentage of the overall National Market System market average daily dollar volume and, as a result, did not recognize that it was required to be in compliance with Regulation Systems Compliance and Integrity (Reg SCI) under the Exchange Act.

Maxim Group LLC was fined $65,000 for trading for its own account on the same side of the market at prices that would have satisfied outstanding customer orders, without immediately thereafter executing the customer orders up to the size and/or at the same or better price as it traded for its own account.

CODA Markets, Inc. fka PDQ ATS was fined $1,250,000 - and required to retain an independent consultant to conduct a comprehensive review of the adequacy of its compliance with Rule 15c3-5 of the Exchange Act and FINRA Rules 3110, 3120 and 3310 - for failing to establish, document and maintain a supervisory system, including WSPs, and regulatory risk management controls reasonably designed to monitor for potentially manipulative trading, such as potential layering, spoofing, wash trades, prearranged trades, marking the close and odd-lot manipulation, by its subscribers and their customers.

Precision Securities, LLC fined $350,000 and required to retain an independent consultant to conduct a comprehensive review of the reasonableness of the firm’s policies, systems, procedures (written and otherwise) and training relating to compliance with FINRA Rule 3310 and the requirements of the Bank Secrecy Act and the regulations promulgated thereunder related to monitoring for, identifying, investigating, documenting and responding to red flags of suspicious activity.

Wilson-Davis & Co., Inc. was fined $500,000, ordered to retain an independent consultant to conduct a comprehensive review of the adequacy of its compliance with its supervisory and anti-money laundering (AML) compliance obligations in connection with its market making activities in low-priced securities and sale of low-priced securities for firm customer accounts and subjected to a business line restriction that it shall not accept for deposit for any firm customer account any low-priced security until it certifies to FINRA that it has implemented the recommendations of the independent consultant.

StockCross Financial Services, Inc. was fined $250,000 and required to retain an independent consultant to conduct a comprehensive review of its compliance with FINRA’s suitability rules and the Exchange Act’s possession-or-control requirements in connection with the firm’s solicited equity and options transactions and stock loan business.

Laidlaw & Company (UK) Ltd. was fined $1,500,000 for failing to establish, maintain and enforce a supervisory system, including WSPs, reasonably designed to achieve compliance with federal securities laws and FINRA rules prohibiting market manipulation in that it did not provide branch managers with reasonable training or guidance regarding how to identify prohibited transactions.

The SEC has ordered Neovest Inc., a provider of an order and execution management system (OEMS), to pay a $2.75M penalty for its failure to register as a broker-dealer as the company was participating in the order-taking and order-routing process, soliciting customers and destination brokers, and receiving transaction-based compensation. This is the SEC’s first case charging an OEMS provider for operating as an unregistered broker-dealer.

Clearpool Execution Services was fined $300,000 for failing to comply with Rule 203(b)(1) of Regulation SHO in that it did not obtain locates to facilitate client short sale orders on a riskless principal basis.

Cantor Fitzgerald was fined $50,000 for failing to implement policies and procedures that reasonably avoid displaying, or engaging in a pattern or practice of displaying, locking or crossing quotations in OTC equity securities.

G1 Execution Services was fined $575,000 and ordered to pay $816,618.75 in restitution for failing to provide best execution to orders from its clients on behalf of their customers in over-the-counter (OTC) securities by failing to use reasonable diligence to ascertain the best market for the subject securities and by failing to buy or sell in such a market so that the resultant prices to the customers were as favorable as possible under prevailing market conditions.

Wolverine Execution Services, LLC was fined $170,000 by FINRA and various exchanges for sell orders inaccurately marked as long rather than short, inaccurate TRF and OATS reporting and inadequate disclosures of payment for order flow arrangement.