Merrill, BofA Fined $12M for Suspicious Activity Report Failures

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission revealed Tuesday that it has charged Merrill Lynch and its parent company, Bank of America, with failing to file hundreds of suspicious activity reports from 2009 to late 2019.

Merrill Lynch has agreed to pay a $6 million penalty to settle the SEC charges, according to statement released by the regulator, while in a parallel action, Merrill agreed to pay a separate $6 million fine to settle charges brought by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.

“Following an internal review, we reported this matter to regulators and have enhanced our process and training regarding these filings,” a Bank of America representative said in a statement.

According to the SEC’s order, the Bank of America parent organization assumed responsibility for creating and implementing Merrill Lynch’s suspicious activity reporting policies and procedures, and for filing Merrill Lynch’s reports.

Over the course of a decade, the SEC alleges, the company improperly used a $25,000 threshold instead of the required $5,000 threshold for reporting suspicious transactions or attempted transactions where a suspect may have been seeking to use Merrill Lynch to facilitate criminal activity and could not be identified.