The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) has imposed a $1.45 million civil penalty on Goldman Sachs (GS, Financial) for inaccurately reporting billions of stock trade data. A coding error in Goldman's systems resulted in the erroneous reporting of 36.6 billion trade records to the Consolidated Audit Trail (CAT) Central Repository, a system designed to assist in monitoring market activities.
Additionally, FINRA disclosed that between October and November 2021, Goldman Sachs experienced technical issues leading to the incorrect processing of 90.8 million order memoranda. This resulted in the misreporting of 6.9 million trade records and the erroneous issuance of over 372,000 trade confirmations. Furthermore, the malfunction caused Goldman Sachs to improperly report 98,322 trades that should not have been submitted.
The settlement also addresses allegations of regulatory oversight failures by Goldman Sachs. In reaching the settlement, Goldman neither admitted nor denied the allegations. The firm did not provide immediate comments.