Citigroup Hit With $3 Million Fine for Failure to Supervise ETF Sales
Citigroup Global Markets Inc., (Citigroup) submitted a Letter of Acceptance, Waiver and Consent in which the firm consented to, but it did not admit to or deny, the described sanctions and the entry of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority’s (FINRA) findings that it failed to deliver prospectuses with respect to the sales of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) to its investor customers. According to FINRA, Citigroup failed to deliver prospectuses for nearly 255,000 investor purchases of approximately 160 ETFs over a three-month period. Further, FINRA found that from 2009 through April 2011, Citigroup may have failed to deliver prospectuses for more than 1.5 million purchases of ETFs by investors. Moreover, Citigroup’s supervisory system failed to achieve compliance with Federal securities laws with regard to prospectus-delivery requirements, especially since the firm allegedly detected certain failures back in 2009.
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