Investor Lawyers Blog
Bank of America’s Merrill Lynch brokerage unit agreed to pay $1 million for supervisory failures that allowed a former broker to use a Merrill Lynch account to run a Ponzi scheme, FINRA said on Tuesday.
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (“FINRA”), which oversees the U.S. brokerage industry, found that the brokerage failed to have an adequate supervisory system to monitor employee accounts for potential misconduct.
The wayward broker, Bruce Hammonds, has been sentenced to 57 months in federal prison for convincing 11 people to invest more than $1 million in a Ponzi scheme he ran as a Merrill branch representative in San Antonio, Texas.