Morgan Stanley Agrees to $800,000 Research Report Fine

In a Press Release titled: FINRA Fines Morgan Stanley $800,000 for Deficient Conflict of Interest Disclosures in Equity Research Reports and Public Appearances by Research Analysts / Firm Also Violated 2003 Research Analyst Settlement at http://www.finra.org/Newsroom/NewsReleases/2010/P121785, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) announced on August 10, 2010, that it has censured and fined Morgan Stanley & Co., Inc. $800,000 for failing to make public disclosures required by FINRA's rules governing research analyst conflicts of interest. The firm also failed to comply with a key provision of the 2003 Research Analyst Settlement by failing to disclose the availability of independent research in customer account statements. In addition to the censure and fine, Morgan Stanley must review a sample of its research reports and certify to FINRA that they comply with FINRA's research analyst conflict-of-interest rules. These reviews and certifications must take place every six months for two years.

Four Years of Non-Disclosure. Thousands of Incidents.

FINRA found that from April 2006 to June 2010, Morgan Stanley issued equity research reports that failed to disclose accurate information about the relationships Morgan Stanley, or its analysts, had with companies covered in its research reports. Overall, these inaccuracies resulted in approximately

• 6,836 deficient disclosures
  
• in about 6,632 equity research reports and
  
• 84 public appearances by research analysts.

Among the deficient disclosures were:

• Securities holdings of an analyst, or a member of the analyst's household, in a subject company;
• Morgan Stanley's receipt of investment banking and non-investment banking revenue from subject companies;
• Morgan Stanley's role as a manager, or co-manager, of a public offering of securities for subject companies;
• Morgan Stanley's role as a market maker for certain subject companies' securities; and
• Price charts for securities covered in equity research reports and the valuation method used to support published price targets.

Morgan Stanley did not disclose in approximately 127,600 monthly account statements sent to customers from August 2007 to February 2008 that it had available independent, third-party research. The requirement to provide customers with this notification was part of the Securities and Exchange Commission's final agreement with Morgan Stanley as part of the 2003 Research Analyst Settlement and was incorporated into a separate agreement with FINRA.

FINRA Gives Credit for Self-Review and Self-Reporting -- gee, that's nice

In determining the appropriate sanctions in this matter, FINRA considered Morgan Stanley's self-review and self-reporting of some of its disclosure violations and remedial steps taken by the firm, as well as a prior FINRA settlement that found the firm violated FINRA's research analyst disclosure rules. In settling this matter, Morgan Stanley neither admitted nor denied the charges, but consented to the entry of FINRA's findings.

Bill Singer's Comment:

For those of you who still desperately cling to the belief that self-regulation works, perhaps this case may yet change your mind.  Consider that for a four-year period from April 2006 to June 2010, Morgan Stanley issued over 6,000 research reports with deficiences -- yet, amazingly, no regulator seemed to have had a clue about these violations.  If I were being a truly obnoxious, sarcastic bastard, I might suggest that the regulators were all hot on the trail of both Madoff and Stanford. But I"m not that crude a pundit. Course not. I mean, you know, it's not like Bernie and Sir Alan (or is that Sir Allen?) were up to their shenanigans for over a decade, right under the formidable noses of so many regulators

Moreover, given that FINRA is crediting "Morgan Stanley's self-review and self reporting of some of its disclosure violations. . ." you have to wonder whether any regulator would have uncovered this long-term, massive disclosure failure by Morgan Stanley but for the firm's own efforts to come clean. 

Can any of Wall Street's cops detect anything?  Seriously, can they?

For those of you who forgot, in April 2003, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), the National Association of State Securities Administrators (NASAA), and the New York State Attorney General announced the final terms of the Global Settlement of Conflicts of Interest Between Research and Investment Banking (Global Settlement), which resulted from joint regulatory investigations into conflicts of interest between investment banking and securities research at brokerage firms.