Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) has agreed to pay a $1.45 million civil penalty to resolve allegations from a U.S. regulatory body that the bank failed to properly report data tied to billions of trades in the stock market.
According to a consent order released Tuesday by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), coding issues within the firm’s systems led to the misreporting of approximately 36.6 billion trades to the Consolidated Audit Trail (CAT), a critical platform used by regulators to oversee market activity.
The CAT system is designed to provide a comprehensive view of market orders and trades, improving oversight and detection of manipulative behavior.
In addition to the coding problems, FINRA highlighted a separate technical failure that occurred in October and November of 2021. During that period, Goldman Sachs reportedly produced nearly 91 million inaccurate order memoranda, misreported 6.9 million trades, and issued more than 372,000 incorrect trade confirmations. The firm also reported over 98,000 trades that it wasn’t required to report at all.
The settlement further addresses what FINRA described as weaknesses in Goldman’s supervisory systems, which allowed these issues to go undetected.
Goldman Sachs agreed to the settlement without admitting or denying the findings. As of Wednesday, the company had not issued a public statement regarding the matter.