FINRA Sanctions Firm for Supervisory Failures Related to Complex Product Sales, Trade Surveillance and Trade Confirmations Delivery

FINRA announced that it censured and fined LPL Financial LLC ("LPL") for supervisory failures in a number of areas, including the sales of nontraditional exchange-traded funds, certain variable annuity contracts, non-traded real estate investment trusts and other complex products.

Additionally, FINRA found that LPL's systems for reviewing trading activity in customer accounts "were plagued by multiple deficiencies." According to FINRA, LPL used a surveillance system that failed to generate alerts for certain high-risk activity, including low-priced equity transactions, actively traded securities and potential employee front-running.

See: FINRA Press Release.