Wall Street Cop Finra Goes Quiet on the Beat as Its Caseload Plunges

  • Industry-funded Finra issues far fewer press releases on fines
  • Regulator of brokers says it hasn’t pulled back on enforcement
Photographer: Alex Kent/Bloomberg
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Two days after Christmas, a prominent Wall Street regulator updated a database with news of interest to the industry: A $1.4 trillion brokerage had been slapped with one of the year’s biggest fines for allegedly losing track of almost a million trades.

But there was no press release when the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority hit LPL Financial Holdings Inc. with the $6 million penalty. Nor did Finra seek attention for its multimillion-dollar sanctions of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Barclays Plc months earlier.