Supervisor Charged for Role in Brokerage Firm’s Improper Handling of ADRs

The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that Domenick Migliorato, a former supervisor of the securities lending desk at Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Financial Services LLC (ICBCFS), has agreed to settle charges for his supervisory failures involving the improper handling of transactions involving American Depositary Receipts (ADRs). Earlier this year, ICBCFS agreed to pay more than $42 million to settle the SEC’s charges against the firm. ADRs are U.S. securities that represent foreign shares of a foreign company and require a corresponding number of foreign shares to be held in custody at a depositary bank. The practice of “pre-release” allows ADRs to be issued without the deposit of foreign shares, provided brokers receiving them have an agreement with a depositary bank and the broker or its customer owns the number of foreign shares that corresponds to the number of shares the ADRs represent.