Last week, Louis Capital Markets, L.P. (“LCM”) agreed to disgorge $2.5 million in settlement of charges that it charged false execution prices to its customers in order to generate secret commissions.
LCM executed orders to purchase and sell securities for its clients, without holding any securities in its own account and thus bore no market risk, i.e., riskless principal trades. It purported to generate profits by charging customers small commissions, typically between $0.01 and $0.03 per share. LCM, however, unbeknownst to customers, inflated those commissions, by embedding undisclosed markups and markdowns into reported execution prices. LCM provided those false execution prices—either lower sales prices or higher purchase prices than LCM actually obtained in the market—to its customers. Critically, LCM did not engage in this deceptive behavior for every trade, rather “LCM opportunistically added markups/markdowns to trades at times when customers were unlikely to detect them, for example, during periods of market volatility.” (Order ¶ 13.) By engaging in these acts, LCM “unlawfully obtained millions of dollars from its customers.” (Order at 2.)
Without admitting or denying the findings, LCM agreed disgorge $2.5 million and to cease-and-desist violating Section 15(c)(1), which prohibits fraudulent conduct by broker-dealers. The SEC noted that while the conduct would support a civil penalty, it considered LCM’s financial status and accepted LCM’s offer that did not include one. Interestingly, LCM’s customers were “primarily large foreign institutions and foreign banks,” demonstrating the SEC’s commitment to eradicate fraud regardless of sophistication of investors.