These are some of the compliance-related stories that recently caught my attention.
SEC Charges Athena Capital in First HFT Case in the Corporate Crime Reporter
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has sanctioned a New York City-based high frequency trading firm for placing a large number of aggressive, rapid-fire trades in the final two seconds of almost every trading day during a six-month period to manipulate the closing prices of thousands of NASDAQ-listed stocks.
Why High-Frequency Trading Is So Hard to Regulate by Peter J. Henning in DealBook
The challenge in pursuing charges against these firms is that they are taking advantage of changes in the technology underpinning the markets to profit from quick trades, which is not illegal. But regulators can find it difficult to draw the line between acceptable trading strategies and manipulation because of the complexity of the strategies.
SEC Breaks Down FY 2014 Enforcement Results, Highlights by Bruce Carton in Compliance Week
Late last week, the SEC issued a press release summarizing its enforcement results for the agency’s fiscal year 2014, which ended September 30, 2014. The SEC emphasized that it filed a record 755 enforcement actions in FY 2014, and that these cases “included a number of first-ever cases, including actions involving the market access rule, the ‘pay-to-play’ rule for investment advisers, an emergency action to halt a municipal bond offering, and an action for whistleblower retaliation.”