SEC fines optionsXpress, individuals $4.8 million for naked short sales
Reuters Staff, 10 June 2013
NEW YORK (Reuters) – A Securities and Exchange Commission judge has ordered optionsXpress, its former chief financial officer and a customer to pay a total of $4.8 million in fines and to return $4.2 million for illegally selling shares they did not hold.
The order was posted late Friday on the SEC’s website.
A lawyer for Charles Schwab Corp, which bought optionsXpress in 2011 after the alleged violations occurred, said that optionsXpress “respectfully disagrees” with the ruling and is considering an appeal.
“There was no naked short selling in this case,” Stephen Senderowitz, a lawyer representing optionsXpress, said in an email to Reuters.
