SEC Charges LPL Financial with Anti-Money Laundering Violations

The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced charges against broker-dealer and investment adviser LPL Financial LLC for multiple failures related to its anti-money laundering (AML) program. To resolve the SEC’s charges, LPL agreed to pay a civil penalty of $18 million and to implement improvements to its AML policies and procedures. According to the SEC order, from at least May 2019 through December 2023, LPL experienced longstanding failures in its customer identification program, including a failure to timely close accounts for which it had not properly verified the customer’s identity. Furthermore, LPL failed to close or restrict thousands of high-risk accounts, such as cannabis-related and foreign accounts, that were prohibited under LPL’s AML policies.