RBC Charged With Failing to Give Priority to Retail and Institutional Investors in Municipal Offerings

The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that RBC Capital Markets LLC has agreed to pay more than $800,000 to resolve charges that it engaged in unfair dealing in municipal bond offerings. The SEC also announced settled charges against Kenneth G. Friedrich, RBC's former head of Municipal Sales, Trading and Syndication, and Jaime L. Durando, the head of RBC's municipal syndicate desk. According to the SEC's order, over a nearly four-year period, RBC improperly allocated bonds intended for institutional customers and dealers to parties known in the industry as "flippers," who then resold or "flipped" the bonds to other broker-dealers at a profit.