Citigroup Global Markets is Sanctioned $11.5 Million For Rating Glitches

Citigroup Global Markets has been sanctioned a hefty fine by Finra over rating glitches that have occured for almost five years.

Finra has sanctioned the company $11.5 million in total for inaccurately disseminating research ratings. The fine consists of a $5.5 million Finra fine and at least $6 million in compensation to be given to retail customers.

According to Finra, Citigroup Global Markets, a brokerage unit of Citigroup, had displayed innaccurate research ratings from February 2011 to December 2015 to brokers, retail customers and supervisors.

Finra said the mistakes were due to errors in the electronic feed of ratings data that CGMI provided to its clearing firm. The research reports that brokers had access to did not show the errors.

Errors included the firm displaying the wrong rating for securities its research team covered. While a rating would say “buy” it really was supposed to be “sell.