FINRA fined Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. $6 million for submitting inaccurate and untimely trade data concerning over one million transactions to FINRA/SEC, ordering the firm to improve its policies and procedures related to blue sheet submissions.
The findings state that the security wing of Deutsche Bank, which itself is in the midst of a Lehman-esque stock price plunge, submitted at least 3,600 inaccurate blue sheets to FINRA and the SEC that misreported at least 1,090,000 total securities transactions, while at least 40% of the firm's blue sheet submissions were submitted to FINRA in an untimely manner. FINRA additionally found that in July and August 2015, over 90% of Deutsche Bank's submissions were untimely.
FINRA found the firm didn't have written supervisory procedures for blue sheets nor an adequate audit system for accountability's sake, and that the errors were caused by at least six "significant" failures in the firm's reporting system.
The firm purportedly provided inaccurate broker codes, failed to populate primary-party identifier information, included duplicate transactions, omitted certain transactions, failed to populate the order-execution-time, and/or incorrectly reported "short" transactions as "long" in over one million of its submitted transactions.
Blue sheets are requests for information from SEC/FINRA sent to firms and ask about detailed trade information and transactions. Blue sheets are generally used by regulators to determine if any illicit or illegal activity, such as manipulation or unauthorized transactions, has occurred. For instance, the SEC wrote in 2014 that, "Blue sheet information is the lifeblood of many SEC investigations and examinations."
If you have invested with or in Deutsche Bank or with another firm whose failure to submit compliance documents to FINRA or the SEC in a timely or accurate manner or whose failure to retain required e-mails or other communications/electronic documents has proven harmful to your investments by impeding investigators and regulators from learning of misconduct such as manipulations or even account intrusions and unauthorized trading, please call The Law Offices of Jonathan W. Evans & Associates at (800) 699-1881 for an investigation and consultation.