SEC Charges Former Software Executive With FCPA Violations

The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that a former executive at a worldwide software manufacturer has agreed to settle charges that he violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) by bribing Panamanian government officials through an intermediary to procure software license sales.

An SEC investigation found that Vicente E. Garcia, the former vice president of global and strategic accounts for SAP SE, orchestrated a scheme to pay $145,000 in bribes to one government official and promised to pay two others in order to obtain four contracts to sell SAP software to the Panamanian government.  He essentially caused SAP, which is headquartered in Germany and executes most of its sales through a network of worldwide corporate partners, to sell software to a partner in Panama at discounts of up to 82 percent.  The excessive discounts enabled the partner to create a slush fund from its excessive earnings on the other end of the sales and tap that money to pay the bribes to Panamanian government officials so SAP could sell the software.  Garcia, who lives in Miami, also received kickbacks from the slush fund into his bank account.

In a parallel action, the U.S. Department of Justice today announced a criminal action against Garcia.

“Garcia attempted to avoid detection by arranging large, illegitimate discounts to a corporate partner in order to generate a cash pot to bribe government officials and win business for SAP,” said Kara Brockmeyer, Chief of the SEC Enforcement Division’s FCPA Unit.

According to the SEC’s order instituting a settled administrative proceeding:

• The scheme lasted from 2009 to 2013.
• Garcia circumvented SAP’s internal controls by submitting various approval forms to SAP that falsified the reasons for the excessive discounts to the local partner.
• Garcia used his SAP e-mail account and his personal e-mail account to communicate details of the bribery scheme and even identify the government officials and intended monetary amounts. 
• In an e-mail to one government official, Garcia attached a letter on SAP letterhead detailing fictional meetings in Mexico as requested by the official in order to justify a trip there on false pretenses.  The next day, Garcia sent a subsequent e-mail asking, “Any news …?  Was the document OK for him?  Can you ask him to finalize a deal for us in Feb-March, I need between $5 and $10 million.”

The SEC’s order finds that Garcia violated the anti-bribery and internal controls provisions of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.  Garcia consented to the entry of the cease-and-desist order and agreed to pay disgorgement of $85,965, which is the total amount of kickbacks he received, plus prejudgment interest of $6,430 for a total of $92,395.

The SEC’s continuing investigation is being conducted by Ansu Banerjee and supervised by Alka Patel.  The SEC appreciates the assistance of the U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California, and Federal Bureau of Investigation.


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via SEC Press Releases

SEC Charges ITG With Operating Secret Trading Desk and Misusing Dark Pool Subscriber Trading Information

The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that ITG Inc. and its affiliate AlterNet Securities have agreed to pay $20.3 million to settle charges that they operated a secret trading desk and misused the confidential trading information of dark pool subscribers.

An SEC investigation found that despite telling the public that it was an “agency-only” broker whose interests don’t conflict with its customers, ITG operated an undisclosed proprietary trading desk known as “Project Omega” for more than a year.  While ITG claimed to protect the confidentiality of its dark pool subscribers’ trading information, during an eight-month period Project Omega accessed live feeds of order and execution information of its subscribers and used it to implement high-frequency algorithmic trading strategies, including one in which it traded against subscribers in ITG’s dark pool called POSIT.

ITG agreed to admit wrongdoing and pay disgorgement of $2,081,034 (the total proprietary revenues generated by Project Omega) plus prejudgment interest of $256,532 and a penalty of $18 million that is the SEC’s largest to date against an alternative trading system.

“ITG created a secret trading desk and misused highly confidential customer order and trading information for its own benefit,” said Andrew J. Ceresney, Director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement.  “In doing so, ITG abused the trust of its customers and engaged in conduct justifying the significant sanctions imposed in this case.”

According to the SEC’s order instituting a settled administrative proceeding:

• Project Omega traded a total of approximately 1.3 billion shares, including approximately 262 million shares with unsuspecting subscribers in ITG’s own dark pool.
• Project Omega employed an algorithmic trading strategy called the “Facilitation Strategy” in which it executed trades based on a live feed of information concerning orders that its sell-side subscribers sent to ITG’s algorithms for handling. 
• Project Omega accessed the feed by connecting to a software utility that was used by ITG’s sales and support teams.  As a result, Project Omega had a real-time view of subscriber orders being placed through ITG’s algorithms.
• From April to December 2010, the Facilitation Strategy was designed to detect open orders of sell-side subscribers being handled by ITG.  Based on that information, Project Omega opened positions in displayed markets on the same side of the market as the detected orders, and then closed these positions in POSIT by trading against the detected orders.  By employing this strategy, Project Omega sought to capture the full “bid-ask spread” between the National Best Bid and Offer (NBBO).
• Project Omega had access to the identities of POSIT subscribers and used this information to identify sell-side subscribers and trade with them in the dark pool in connection with the Facilitation Strategy.
• To earn the full “bid-ask spread” in connection with the Facilitation Strategy, Project Omega needed the subscribers with which it traded in POSIT to be configured to trade “aggressively” so that the subscribers would “cross the spread” to trade with Project Omega.  Project Omega took steps to ensure that the sell-side subscribers were configured to trade aggressively in POSIT. 
• Project Omega’s other primary strategy called the “Heatmap Strategy” involved trading on markets other than POSIT based on a live feed of confidential information relating to customer executions in other dark pools.  Based on customer executions, Project Omega’s Heatmap algorithm was designed to open positions in specific securities in displayed markets at the bid or the offer and then close them at midpoint or better in the external dark pools where customers had received midpoint executions.  The goal of this strategy was to earn a “half spread” or better based on knowledge of ITG customers’ executions.

The SEC’s order finds that ITG violated Sections 17(a)(2) and (3) of the Securities Act of 1933 in connection with Project Omega by engaging in a course of business that operated as a fraud and by failing to make disclosures about Project Omega and its proprietary trading activities.  ITG also violated Rules 301(b)(2) and 301(b)(10) of Regulation ATS by failing to amend its Form ATS filings in light of Project Omega’s trading activities in POSIT, failing to establish adequate safeguards, and failing to implement adequate oversight procedures to protect the confidential trading information of POSIT subscribers.

via SEC Press Releases