August 18, 2017

The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that broker Banca IMI Securities Corp. (BISC), an indirect, wholly-owned U.S. subsidiary of Italian bank Intesa Sanpaolo SpA, has agreed to pay more than $35 million to settle charges that it violated federal securities laws when it requested the issuance of and received American Depositary Receipts (ADRs) without possessing the underlying foreign shares. The SEC’s order finds that BISC obtained pre-released ADRs and lent them to counterparties without satisfying the proper requirements.  BISC’s improper handling of ADRs, which lasted from at least January 2011 to August 2015, made it possible for such ADRs to be used for inappropriate short selling or inappropriate profiting around dividend record dates. SEC

Tagged in: Market Manipulation and Trading Violations, Securities Fraud,