Goldman Sachs faces 72 million won fine due to naked short selling
Kim Min-jee, 10 April 2019
Goldman Sachs was slapped with fines by financial authorities for illegal short stock selling. According to the Financial Services Commission on April 9, Goldman Sachs India, a subsidiary of Goldman Sachs, was fined 72 million won for making a naked short selling at a meeting of the Securities and Futures Commission held in February.
Goldman Sachs allegedly made naked short selling for 21 Lotte Chilsung Beverage shares and 18 JW Pharmaceutical shares in October 2017 and January 2018, respectively. Goldman Sachs said, “It is a human error.”
In November last year, the committee also slapped a record 7.5 billion won fine on Goldman Sachs International, a unit of Goldman Sachs, on charges of illegal short stock selling.
At that time, the Seoul branch of Goldman Sachs International sold 156 stock items (worth 40.1 billion won) that it did not borrow for two days from May 30 to 31.
In the first place, the Financial Supervisory Service, which put the bill on the committee, put the penalty violation results up to “ordinary” among “light,” “ordinary” and “severe,” according to the regulations, but the committee decided that the penalty violation was “severe.”
As a result, the level of fines, which stood at 48 million won, rose by 12 million won each to 72 million won.
In addition, the committee also raised the violation results, which were “light” in the FSS measure, to “ordinary” and fined 48 million won on other three foreign securities companies each.
