Market Manipulation. Search

SEC v. Waddell & Reed, LLC (2022)

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.

Report an error in this record (sec-waddell-reed-llc-2022) by email

In 2022, the Securities and Exchange Commission settled an action with Waddell & Reed, LLC, over failing to monitor wrap-fee advisory accounts for inactivity. The release records a civil penalty of $200,000, disgorgement of $484,645, prejudgment interest of $90,944.

The record

Structured fields for this action, as recorded in our case library.
Agency SEC
Release number 3-21107
Date filed 2022-09-19
Date resolved 2022-09-19
Status settled
Criminal parallel No
Defendants Waddell & Reed, LLC (entity)
Cited as charged or alleged Advisers Act s.206 (statutes and rules cited in the document; not a finding that they were violated)
Techniques

What was ordered

Civil penalty
$200k
Disgorgement
$485k
Prejudgment interest
$90.9k
Total relief
$776k
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 19, 2022 as release 3-21107. The respondents named are Waddell & Reed, LLC (0 individuals, 1 entity).

This order's uses of "churning" are all in the phrase "reverse churning" — a wrap-fee account traded too little, the mirror image of the excessive trading this library's churning technique describes. Nothing in the order alleges that any customer account was traded excessively, so this library does not tag the matter with any technique; no separate slug in this taxonomy covers reverse churning.

The relief recorded in our data is a civil monetary penalty of $200,000, disgorgement of $484,645, prejudgment interest of $90,944. 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. 2022-09-19 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.

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.