U.S. regulators fine Piper Sandler $16 million for record-keeping failures

(Reuters) – Piper Sandler has agreed to pay a total of $16 million as a civil penalty to U.S. regulators to resolve investigations into its record-keeping practices, the investment banking firm said on Tuesday.

The firm will pay $14 million to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and $2 million to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to settle probes into unapproved business-related communications on messaging platforms, according to a company filing.

The SEC has been conducting a multi-year initiative to investigate whether Wall Street banks have been adequately logging employees’ text messages and emails, particularly as bankers shifted to remote work during the pandemic.

Regulators require banks to keep records of their staff communications, and typically ban the use of personal email, texts and messaging applications for work purposes.

Since 2021, the SEC has fined dozens of firms including big banks such as JPMorgan Chase & Co (NYSE:), and Wells Fargo & Co, a total of over $1.7 billion for such compliance failures.

Broker-dealers and investment advisers registered with the SEC are subject to record-keeping requirements, which have become more challenging to meet due to the increasing use of off-channel communications.

Earlier in the year, Oppenheimer & Co. and U.S. Bancorp also agreed to $12 million and $8 million in civil penalties, respectively, to settle SEC’s charges over record-keeping failures.

Piper Sandler said that it had set aside $16 million related to the investigations, as of June 30, 2024.