ABN AMRO Clearing Chicago Charged With Improper Handling of ADRs

The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that ABN AMRO Clearing Chicago LLC will pay more than $586,000 to settle charges of improper handling of “pre-released” American Depositary Receipts (ADRs). 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 the broker receiving them has an agreement with a depositary bank and the receiving broker or its customer owns a number of foreign shares that corresponds to the number of shares the ADRs represent.