Akron Beacon Journal – Prudential’s brokerage subsidiary agreed Monday to pay $600 million in fines and restitution for deceptive market timing in trading mutual fund shares for wealthy clients.
The settlement with the Justice Department is one of the largest resulting from a broad probe of market timing using computerized stock sales that has rocked the fund industry for the past three years. In 2004, Bank of America Corp. agreed to a $675 million deal.
Prudential’s brokerage subsidiary, Prudential Equity Group. LLC, admitted to criminal wrongdoing from 1999 until September 2003 and agreed to pay the $600 million. The department agreed to withhold filing a charge of securities fraud if PEG and its parent, Prudential Financial Inc., honor a pair of agreements for five years.
At least two dozen brokers at PEG or its predecessor, Prudential Securities, Inc., generated $57 million worth of commissions and more than $100 million in illicit profits for their clients between 2001 and 2003, the government said.
It said thousands of computerized, late-market trades were generated on behalf of 15 Prudential clients, almost all of them hedge funds. These small, highly speculative funds typically require their wealthy clients to invest a minimum of $250,000 to more than $1 million.
