Sixteen firms settled with the Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission for failing to maintain and preserve business-related communications.
- Total civil penalties for these settlements and similar actions brought in December 2021 exceed $2 billion.
- The settlements stem from a risk-based investigation into whether broker-dealers, swap dealers, and other registrants are retaining business-related communications made on personal devices.
- Companies can take certain proactive measures now to ensure their record retention policies and controls sufficiently mitigate risk stemming from employee use of text messaging applications, including third-party platforms such as WhatsApp, on their personal devices.
