{"id":1683353,"date":"2022-10-11T10:20:16","date_gmt":"2022-10-11T14:20:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1683353"},"modified":"2022-10-11T10:21:10","modified_gmt":"2022-10-11T14:21:10","slug":"sec-scrutiny-into-wall-street-communications-widens-to-investment-funds-sources","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/sec-scrutiny-into-wall-street-communications-widens-to-investment-funds-sources\/","title":{"rendered":"SEC scrutiny into Wall Street communications widens to investment funds \u2013 sources"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">24<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fsec-scrutiny-into-wall-street-communications-widens-to-investment-funds-sources%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1683353&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>By Chris Prentice<\/p>\n<p>WASHINGTON (Reuters) \u2013     The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission\u2019s scrutiny of how Wall Street handles work-related communications on personal devices and apps such as WhatsApp has expanded beyond broker-dealers to investment funds and advisers, according to three people familiar with the inquiry.<\/p>\n<div id=\"div-gpt-ad-1663871513696-art-1\">\n<\/div>\n<p>Late last month, the SEC and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) fined 16 financial firms, including large banks such as Goldman Sachs Group Inc and Morgan Stanley, a combined $1.8 billion after staff discussed deals and trades on their personal devices and apps, in a sweeping probe of record-keeping practices.<\/p>\n<p>That probe primarily targeted broker-dealers rather than asset managers, although funds did become more cautious as a result and joined banks in tightening controls on personal cellphones, as well as text messages and apps such as WhatsApp.<\/p>\n<p>The SEC\u2019s enforcement unit has sent inquiries to a number of funds and advisers asking for information about their protocols for so-called \u201coff-channel\u201d business communications as recently as this month, the three sources told Reuters recently. The agency has asked firms to preserve and produce documents and share information on policies related to the use of devices and platforms, the sources said, speaking on condition of anonymity.<\/p>\n<p>Details of the investigative \u201csweep\u201d have not previously been reported. A spokesperson for the SEC declined to comment, saying: \u201cWe don\u2019t comment on the existence or nonexistence of a possible investigation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The SEC periodically conducts such sweeps to quickly gather information on issues it suspects may be widespread. Sweeps can sometimes, although not necessarily, lead to formal probes.<\/p>\n<p>The SEC has been aggressive on enforcement under Democratic leadership and the industry probe into the banks was a landmark case for the SEC and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, marking one their largest collective resolutions. <\/p>\n<p>The banks\u2019 staff routinely communicated about business matters such as debt and equity deals with colleagues, clients and other third-party advisers using applications on their personal devices such as text messages and WhatsApp, the agencies said when it announced the resolution with the banks last month.<\/p>\n<p>The institutions did not preserve most of those personal chats, violating federal rules which require broker-dealers and other financial institutions to preserve business communications. That impeded the agencies\u2019 ability to oversee financial markets, ensure compliance with key rules, and gather evidence in other, unrelated investigations, the agencies said.<\/p>\n<p>Like broker-dealers, investment companies and registered investment advisers are required by the SEC to maintain records of business communications. <\/p>\n<p>In response to the heightened regulatory scrutiny, asset managers have been tightening controls on personal communication tools such as WhatsApp as they join banks in trying to ensure employees play by the rules when they do business with clients remotely.<\/p>\n<p>Keeping up with a proliferation of communication apps \u2014 especially during the pandemic \u2013 has been a challenge for many companies.<\/p>\n<p>Global regulators had already begun to clamp down on the use of unauthorized messaging tools to discuss potentially market-moving matters, but the issue gathered urgency when the coronavirus pandemic forced more finance staff to work from home in 2020.<\/p>\n<p> (Reporting by Chris Prentice; editing by Megan Davies)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.oann.com\/uncategorized\/sec-scrutiny-into-wall\/attachment\/the-seal-of-the-u-s-securities-and-exchange-commission-sec\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/tagreuters.com2022binary_LYNXMPEI9A0RS-BASEIMAGE.jpg\" alt=\"tagreuters.com2022binary_LYNXMPEI9A0RS-BASEIMAGE\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Chris Prentice WASHINGTON (Reuters) \u2013 The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission\u2019s scrutiny of how Wall Street handles work-related communications on personal devices and apps such as WhatsApp has expanded<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":66,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1683353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1683353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/66"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1683353"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1683353\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1683353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1683353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1683353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}