FINRA: Merrill’s system failures produced millions of inaccurate trading records
Kenneth Corbin
OnWallStreet, 19 October 2016
Staffers at FINRA’s Department of Market Regulation identified a number of reporting errors in the data Merrill submitted to FINRA’s Order Audit Trail System, or OATS, and cited the firm for failures relating to its supervision practices and its maintenance of books and records.
In a statement announcing the settlement, Thomas Gira, executive vice president and head of market regulation at FINRA, notes the importance of maintaining accurate data through the OATS market-surveillance program to detect signs of market manipulation and other irregularities.