Finra Fines Goldman Sachs Ex & Clearing $1.8 Million

According to a statement today, Finra found that Goldman Sachs Execution & Clearing failed to transmit a substantial number of order-related events to OATS for its Alternative Trading System (ATS) for approximately seven years, and the firm transmitted inaccurate data for a large number of order-related events for more than eight years.

In addition, even though Goldman Sachs Execution & Clearing's ATS captured order event times in milliseconds, it failed to report order event timestamps in milliseconds for a 10-month period. The firm also submitted a large number of inaccurate, incomplete or improperly formatted trade reports that did not report execution timestamps in milliseconds for a three-month period. During the period of review, Goldman Sachs Execution & Clearing did not have adequate systems and controls in place to detect and prevent the violations.

"OATS data is integral to Finra's automated market surveillance program to detect manipulative activity and other potential violations of Finra rules and federal securities laws," says Thomas Gira, executive vice president of Finra Market Regulation. "It is critical that firms have the necessary systems and supervision in place to ensure compliance with their OATS and trade reporting obligations."

Goldman's ATS was also the target of an $800,000 Finra fine for failure to prevent trade-throughs last July.