Finra slaps LPL with $150,000 supervisory fine

The regulator says the firm failed to supervise one of its affiliated brokers whose outside dealings cost LPL customers more than $650,000.

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority has censured LPL Financial and imposed a fine of $150,000, charging that the firm failed to supervise one of its affiliated brokers whose outside dealings cost LPL customers more than $650,000.

Finra said that LPL ignored several red flags raised by the behavior of the registered representative, who was not identified in the regulator’s letter of acceptance, waiver and consent.

From September 2018 through August 2019, LPL ignored the broker’s use of social media for business purposes, which it had never approved, according to Finra. The firm also is charged with ignoring the broker’s unauthorized use of an LPL email account, which contained emails with references to his work for an advisory firm in which he claimed to be an executive.

Finra’s action sprang from a review of an LPL termination form filed in August 2019 in which the regulator noted that the former firm representative had been charged in an arbitration with moving a customer’s retirement account to another firm and using forged documents to invest the money in a Ponzi scheme.

[More: Ex-LPL adviser arrested in Illinois on theft charges]