U.S. regulators on Tuesday fined 16 financial firms, including Barclays, Bank of America, Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and UBS, a combined $1.8 billion after staff discussed deals and trades on their personal devices and apps.
The sweeping industry probe, first reported by Reuters last year and subsequently disclosed by multiple lenders, is a landmark case for the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), marking one their largest collective resolutions.
From January 2018 through September 2021, the banks’ staff routinely communicated about business matters such as debt and equity deals with colleagues, clients, and other third party advisers using applications on their personal devices such as text messages and WhatsApp, the agencies said….