New York: Goldman Sachs Group has been fined by a US regulator over alleged swaps reporting failures and other violations.
The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission on Friday ordered Goldman to pay a $30 million penalty for failing to “diligently” supervise its swap dealer activities and for failures relating to swap date reporting and so-called pre-trade mid-market marks.
The penalty comes on the heels of an earlier $3 million fine Friday by the CFTC, which faulted Goldman’s surveillance of a customer’s large position in an oil futures contract in late December 2017. The CFTC said that one of Goldman’s automated internal controls malfunctioned and didn’t properly suspend the transaction.
Goldman didn’t admit or deny the allegations in settling either of the CFTC cases. “We are pleased to have resolved these matters,” the firm said in a statement.
The CFTC also imposed a $15 million fine on JPMorgan Chase & Co. and an $8 million fine on Bank of America over lapses that impacted the reporting of millions of swaps transactions. Bank of America did admit to the allegations as part of its settlement over swaps reporting, as did JPMorgan. Representatives for the two banks didn’t immediately respond to emailed requests for comment sent outside of normal business hours.
The alleged deficiencies in Goldman’s swap dealer activities were pervasive and in some instances persisted since 2013, according to the CFTC. Even though Goldman has backreported data on more than 20 million swaps, the regulator said it believes the figure “significantly underestimates” the true scope of the swap data reporting failures.
As significant reporting failures continue to persist, our resolutions will reflect the gravity of swap dealers’ continuing failures to prioritize compliance and seek to deter future failures
The CFTC’s cases against Goldman follow a separate settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission this week in which the Wall Street giant agree to pay $6 million for sending incomplete trading data to that regulator.
