BMO Capital Markets and Robinhood Units Pay $85 Million to Settle SEC Probes Into Mortgage-Backed Bonds and Securities Law Violations

Jan 13, 2025, 09:41 PM

BMO Capital Markets has agreed to pay $40 million to settle an investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) into the supervision of its mortgage-backed bonds salespeople. The SEC alleged that the brokerage firm failed to prevent employees from providing inaccurate information about the bonds to U.S. clients. The settlement includes a formal censure from the SEC, although BMO did not admit or deny any wrongdoing. In a separate case, Robinhood Securities and Robinhood Financial, two brokerage units of Robinhood Markets, have agreed to pay $45 million in civil penalties to settle SEC charges. The penalties address violations of more than 10 separate securities law provisions, including issues related to a 2021 data breach, customer identity theft, marking of short sales, and employee use of WhatsApp. Notably, the settlement does not include allegations related to cryptocurrency.