NEW YORK, Aug 2 (Reuters) - Six Wall Street firms, including Goldman Sachs Group (nyse: GS - news - people) and Merrill Lynch (nyse: GS - news - people), may have to pay as much as $10 million in fines for not keeping e-mail messages as required, The New York Times reported on Friday.
Officials of the Securities and Exchange Commission, NASD, and the New York Stock Exchange proposed the penalties as part of a settlement of inquiries into the disposal of e-mail messages, the paper said.
Regulators discovered that the firms were violating the rules during their investigation into possible conflicts of interest among stock analysts, the newspaper said citing unnamed sources.
The firms that the regulators may punish are the Salomon Smith Barney unit of Citigroup (nyse: C - news - people), Morgan Stanley (nyse: C - news - people), Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Deutsche Bank <DBKGn.DE> and U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray (nyse: C - news - people), the paper quoted sources as saying.
One source indicated each firm would pay an equal share of the fine in the proposed settlement, according to the Times.
Firms are required to preserve all business communications they have sent, both internally and externally, for three years, the paper said. For at least two years, they must be kept in an easily accessible place.
But the firms failed to produce all of the e-mail messages the regulators expected under those rules.
The firms have each come under scrutiny for links between their investment banking business and the investment recommendations of their stock analysts, they said.
Copyright 2002, Reuters News Service |
