Oppenheimer Agrees to Regulatory Fines

Oppenheimer & Co. said Thursday that it settled regulatory matters under which it was being fined $4.4 million, including a fine relating to anti-money-laundering issues brought by the New York Stock Exchange.

The NYSE, together with the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN, said the New York-based financial services firm was being fined $2.8 million relating to failures found in its anti-money laundering program. The fine is to be divided equally between the NYSE and FinCEN.

“A broker-dealer cannot place the financial markets, and its customers, at risk by its own inadequacies, especially in the areas of anti-money laundering and customer accounts,” said Susan Merrill, NYSE Regulation’s head of enforcement.

FinCEN said that as a result of the deficiencies in Oppenheimer’s anti-money laundering program, it “failed to properly identify and report transactions that were suspicious.”

Oppenheimer also is being fined $1.35 million by the NYSE in a separate action addressing the breakdown of operational systems, including transfers and conversions that occurred during Oppenheimer’s integration of acquired brokerage accounts, the NYSE said. Those failures arose from the 2003 purchase of Oppenheimer by Toronto-based Fahnestock, the NYSE said.