SEC v. Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC (2020)

Settled

✓ Checked against the primary document on October 3, 2026. The library's summary, tags and figures for this record were compared with the regulator's own document by an AI model (Claude) following written instructions, with sampled and disputed records read a second time. No lawyer has reviewed them. A checked record can still contain errors, and checked does not mean endorsed. See how we check records or report a correction.

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In September 2020 the Securities and Exchange Commission settled an administrative order with Morgan Stanley & Co., finding it mismarked sell orders because of how it grouped trading units in its prime-brokerage swaps business. The order imposes a $5 million penalty.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

$5m

Disgorgement

—

Prejudgment interest

—

Total relief

$5m

Alleged gain

—

A dash means the release did not state a figure we could extract, not that the figure is zero. Penalty and disgorgement are stored separately so aggregates across the library do not double-count the same dollars.

What is alleged to have happened

The Securities and Exchange Commission announced this matter on September 30, 2020 as release 34-90046. The respondents named are Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC (0 individuals, 1 entity).

The order finds the firm did not qualify to net its long and short units separately, so some sales marked long should have been marked short, in breach of Regulation SHO Rule 200(g). It does not find that shares were sold without a locate.

This library does not tag the matter to a manipulation technique. The only Regulation SHO provision found breached is order marking; no sale without a borrow or locate is found.

The relief recorded in our data is a civil penalty of $5,000,000. Penalty and disgorgement are distinct: disgorgement returns the gain, while the penalty is punitive. We store them separately so that aggregate figures across the library are not double-counted.

For the regulator's own account of the facts, read the primary document linked above. This page deliberately summarises the structured record rather than reproducing the release.

Timeline

1. 2020-09-30 Administrative proceeding instituted (cease-and-desist)

Primary documents

Everything on this page derives from the documents below. Where our summary and the primary document disagree, the primary document is right.

• SEC order

The linked release is a work of the United States government and is not subject to copyright. Our summary and narrative above are our own writing.

Record added September 10, 2026. submit a correction.