UBS to Pay $4.6 Million to Settle Over Unregistered Assistants

Bloomberg -- UBS AG, Switzerland’s largest bank, will pay $4.58 million to settle an investigation by regulators into whether its sales assistants were licensed in states where they did business.

UBS’s “client service associates” took orders without having the required state registrations, according to a statement today by the New Jersey Bureau of Securities, which said it led the case. The Zurich-based bank didn’t admit or deny the allegations. “Over a six-year period, UBS failed to recognize a flaw in its order entry systems that allowed unregistered persons to accept customer orders,” Abbe R. Tiger, the New Jersey agency’s chief, said in the statement. 

UBS’s sales assistants also weren’t adequately supervised, New Jersey regulators said. Bank of America Corp.’s Merrill Lynch brokerage settled a similar state investigation in 2009.

“UBS is pleased to have resolved this legacy registration issue which involved unsolicited orders,” Gregg Rosenberg, a UBS spokesman, said in an e-mailed statement.

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