October 12, 2016

Deutsche Bank Securities will pay a $9.5 million penalty for failing to properly safeguard material non-public information generated by its research analysts.    Deutsche encouraged its equity research analysts to communicate frequently with customers and Deutsche sales and trading personnel, but lacked adequate policies and procedures to prevent analysts from disclosing yet-to-be-published views and analysis, changes in estimates, and short-term trade recommendations.  The SEC order also found that Deutsche improperly published a research report with a “buy” rating for discount retailer Big Lots, even though the analyst who prepared and certified the report held the personal view that the stock should have been downgraded.  Deutsche was also unable to represent that it had recovered and produced to the SEC all communications on Deutsche’s internal messaging system “DB Chat” because the firm had failed to properly preserve them in an accessible place.  SEC

Tagged in: Securities Fraud,