SocGen unit to pay $3.1 million to settle U.S. charges of deficient data

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. broker-dealer unit of France’s Societe Generale has agreed to pay $3.1 million to settle charges of providing deficient data to U.S. regulators, statements from American authorities said on Wednesday.

SG Americas made numerous deficient submissions in key trading information known as “blue sheet data” for more than five years, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said. The failures were largely due to undetected coding errors, resulting in missing or incorrect data for approximately 27.6 million transactions, the SEC said.

The firm has agreed to pay $1.55 million to the SEC and another $1.55 million to the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) to resolve parallel charges, according to statements from FINRA and SEC.

The SEC said it had found that SG Americas willfully violated books and records requirements of U.S. securities laws. The firm admitted to the SEC’s findings, the agency said.

A spokesperson for the firm did not respond immediately to a request for comment.

(Reporting by Lisa Lambert and Chris Prentice; editing by Jonathan Oatis)