On Sept. 27, 2022, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) announced settlements totaling approximately $1.8 billion in fines and penalties against 16 Wall Street financial institutions. (There was also a prior December 2021 settlement between the regulators and a broker-dealer subsidiary of JPMorgan Chase that involved a $200 million fine for alleged failures to retain and track work-related communications on personal cellphones between January 2018 and November 2020. See JPMorgan Admits to Widespread Recordkeeping Failures and Agrees to Pay $125 Million Penalty to Resolve SEC Charges, SEC Press Release, Dec. 17, 2021.)
The settlements involved 15 broker-dealers and one affiliated investment adviser for, according to the SEC, “widespread and longstanding failures by the firms and their employees to maintain and preserve electronic communications,” in violation of recordkeeping requirements in the federal securities laws. (See SEC Charges 16 Wall Street Firms with Widespread Recordkeeping Failures, SEC Press Release, Sept. 27, 2022; Release Number 8599-22; CFTC Orders 11 Financial Institutions to Pay Over $710 Million for Recordkeeping and Supervision Failures for Widespread Use of Unapproved Communication Method, CFTC Press Release, Sept. 27, 2022.)
