The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority has fined three firms $76,500 for violating rules of the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board.
The firms agreed to pay penalties without admitting or denying wrongdoing, according to FINRA's monthly disciplinary report, released Monday.
Seattle-Northwest Securities Corp. agreed to pay $35,000 in fines for violating MSRB Rules G-15 on confirmation clearance or settlement practices, G-27 on supervision, and G-32 on -disclosures.
FINRA said that, from November 2009 to November 2010, disclosures sent by the firm to 15 retail customers and 508 institutional customers did not specify that it would provide them a copy of the official statement upon request.
Under Rule G-32, dealers can notify customers about online official statements and provide them with access to the documents instead of sending them to customers in paper form. However, dealers must offer to provide a customer with an OS in paper form if asked.
Seattle-Northwest also failed to send muni trade confirmations to 456 accounts from March 2008 to November 2010.
The firm also submitted inaccurate information on one Form G-32, and failed to submit three of 161 official statements for primary offerings to EMMA within one business day of receipt, as required.
Seattle-Northwest also had inadequate supervisory procedures, FINRA said.
San Antonio, Texas-based Investment Professionals Inc. was fined $17,500 for violating MSRB rules G-8 on books and records, G-14 on reports of sales and purchases and G-27.
From January to March 2011, the firm failed to report to the Real-time Transaction Reporting System the correct time of 172 interdealer trades. The firm also failed to report 171 interdealer trades and 180 purchase and sale transactions within 15 minutes of execution, as required.
FINRA said Investment Professionals also failed to show the correct time of trade execution on trade memoranda for 172 trades and did not document supervisory reviews.
Wunderlich Securities, Inc., based in Memphis, Tenn., agreed to pay $24,000 in fines for violating rules G-8, G-14, G-15 and G-27.
In 2009 and 2010, FINRA said the firm did not correctly report trades to RTRS. It failed to report correct yield information on 25 transactions, did not report the correct trade time for 108 transactions, and failed to report 493 transactions within 15 minutes, as required.
The firm also did not record the correct trade time on trade memoranda and had inadequate supervisory procedures, FINRA said.
The chief compliance officers of Seattle-Northwest, Investment Professionals and Wunderlich did not return calls requesting comment.
