Washington D.C., May 19, 2014 — The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced charges against four former officials at clearing firm Penson Financial Services for their roles in Regulation SHO violations.
An SEC investigation found that Penson’s securities lending practices intentionally and systematically violated Rule 204 under Reg. SHO. The SEC’s Enforcement Division alleges that Penson’s chief compliance officer Thomas R. Delaney II had direct knowledge that the firm’s procedures for sales of customer margin securities were resulting in rule violations, yet he didn’t take steps to bring Penson into compliance and instead affirmatively assisted the violations. Penson’s president and CEO Charles W. Yancey ignored significant red flags about Delaney’s involvement in the violations and the fact that he was concealing them from FINRA and the SEC. Penson has since filed for bankruptcy.
The full SEC statement is available here.