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LONDON (Alliance News) - The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority or FINRA said Thursday that it has imposed a fine of USD3.75 million on the brokerage unit of British lender Barclays PLC for "systemic failures" to properly preserve electronic records as well as certain emails and instant messages for at least a decade.
FINRA is the largest independent regulator for all securities firms doing business in the US
The regulator found that from at least 2002 to 2012, Barclays Capital failed to preserve many of its required electronic books and records in non-rewritable, non-erasable format, also referred to as "Write-Once, Read-Many" or "WORM" format, to prevent alteration, and as is required by law. The electronic books and records include order and trade ticket data, trade confirmations, blotters, account records and other similar record.
The regulator noted that the issues were widespread and included all of the company's business areas.
Thus, Barclays was unable to determine whether all of its electronic books and records were maintained in an unaltered condition.
FINRA also found that for a period of three years from May 2007 to May 2010, Barclays failed to properly retain certain attachments to Bloomberg emails, and also failed to properly retain about 3.3 million Bloomberg instant messages from October 2008 to May 2010.
Finally, Barclays failed to establish and maintain an adequate system and written procedures reasonably designed so as to achieve compliance with rules and regulations as well as to timely detect and remedy deficiencies related to those requirements.
As part of the settlement, Barclays neither admitted nor denied the charges, but consented to the entry of FINRA's findings.
Brad Bennett, Executive Vice President and Chief of Enforcement, FINRA said, "Ensuring the integrity, accuracy and accessibility of electronic books and records is essential to a firm's ability to meet its compliance obligations. The format errors in this case made it nearly impossible for Barclays to verify that these key materials remained in an unaltered condition."
BCS closed Thursday's trading at USD17.82, up USD0.11 or 0.62% on a volume of 2.76 million shares.
Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX
