Fidelity Investments, one of the nation’s biggest mutual fund concerns, says it has received a subpoena from New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer’s office connected to its wide-ranginginvestigation of potential fund-trading abuses.
Anne Crowley, a spokeswoman for Boston-based Fidelity, said the company received the subpoena late last week and is cooperating with the investigation.
“The request for information was regarding market timing and late trading. Those are the same targets for which (Spitzer) is seeking information from several other firms,” she said. “We understand it to be part of a broader look at market timing and late trading.”
Crowley said Fidelity has cooperated with similar requests for information from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the National Association of Securities Dealers.
For the past month, Spitzer’s office has been investigating possible illegal trading practices by hedge funds with mutual fund companies, including making deals after the market had closed for the day.
In Massachusetts, Secretary of State William F. Galvin, whose office regulates securities trading in the Bay State, has also investigated financial services firms including Prudential Securities and Putnam Investments.
A growing list of mutual fund companies have fired or suspended employees following internal investigations of trading activities following state probes of trading practices.
