Brokerage Firms Agree to Settle NASD Claims

SG Cowen & Co. and 17 other brokerages agreed to pay about $1.2 million to settle allegations that they failed to report orders, the industry’s self-regulatory group said Monday.

New York-based SG Cowen, a unit of France’s Societe Generale bank, will pay $800,000 to settle claims that it failed to report about 50 million orders to the NASD’s auditing system over four years. The other firms will pay about $400,000 for similar violations, said the NASD, formerly known as the National Assn. of Securities Dealers.

All of the firms neither admitted nor denied wrongdoing.

The violations included missing reports and inaccurate data, the NASD said.

Cowen said its reporting problems resulted from a computer programming error.