FINRA Fines Robinhood $26 Million for Compliance Failures
From the desk of Jim Eccleston at Eccleston Law
According to Barron’s, FINRA has fined Robinhood Financial and Robinhood Securities $26 million for multiple rule violations, including failures in anti-money laundering compliance, inadequate supervision of trading technology, and misleading customer communications. Additionally, Robinhood Financial must pay $3.75 million in restitution to customers affected by its order execution practices.
According to FINRA’s findings, Robinhood Financial provided customers with incomplete or inaccurate disclosures about its practice of "collaring" market orders by converting them into limit orders. Barron’s reports that customers whose orders were canceled and later re-entered often received inferior execution prices, leading to the restitution order.
Robinhood Financial and Robinhood Securities also failed to implement reasonable anti-money laundering programs, which resulted in the firms missing red flags related to manipulative trading, unauthorized account access by third-party hackers, and suspicious money movements. Further, Robinhood Financial failed to verify the identities of thousands of customers when opening accounts, violating customer identification program requirements.
Barron’s also reports that the firms failed to monitor and retain social media communications posted by paid influencers promoting Robinhood Financial. Some of these posts contained misleading or unbalanced statements, violating FINRA’s communication rules. Additionally, Robinhood Securities failed to comply with reporting obligations related to blue sheets, FINRA trade reporting facilities, and the Consolidated Audit Trail.
Robinhood Financial and Robinhood Securities consented to FINRA’s findings without admitting or denying the charges. They also agreed to certify that they had remediated the issues identified in the FINRA Acceptance, Waiver, and Consent letter, known as an AWC.
Eccleston Law LLC represents investors and financial advisors nationwide in securities, employment, transition, regulatory, and disciplinary matters.
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