Citigroup fined $30m in US civil case over confidential research
CITIGROUP will pay a $30m (£18.6m) fine after one of its analysts improperly sent confidential research on an Apple supplier to big clients including Steven A Cohen’s hedge fund SAC Capital Advisors, a securities regulator said yesterday.
At $30m, the Massachusetts fine is both one of the biggest state securities regulators have ever collected and 15 times the $2m they fined Citi for improperly disclosing research on Facebook’s initial public offering only a year ago.
A spokeswoman for Citi said the bank takes “regulatory compliance requirements very seriously and train(s) all of our employees about these obligations.” She declined to give further details about the case.
Citigroup analyst Kevin Chang emailed unpublished research about Hon Hai Precision Industry, a major supplier of Apple iPhones, to SAC, T Rowe Price, Citadel and GLG Partners, according to William Galvin, Massachusetts’ Secretary of the Commonwealth. Galvin’s office had filed civil charges against Citi. No criminal charges were filed.