SECURITIES

A.R. Baron, 2 Employees File for Bankruptcy: The New York brokerage firm and two of its employees filed for bankruptcy protection in the wake of Securities and Exchange Commission charges that they defrauded customers, an SEC lawyer said. A.R. Baron & Co. stopped making markets in stocks last week because it didn’t have enough money to meet regulatory requirements. The firm filed in Bankruptcy Court in Newark, N.J., on Wednesday, along with its president, Andrew Bressman, and one of its traders, Roman Okin, said Mark Kreitman, an SEC attorney handling the agency’s administrative case against all three. Phone calls to Baron, which did business on Nasdaq until last week, went unanswered. Attorneys for Baron, Bressman and Okin were unavailable for comment.