Deutsche Bank hit with $37 million fine for dark pool routing

Bank settles after failing to act to resolve faulty order router.

Deutsche Bank is to pay a $37 million penalty to settle an investigation into its US dark pool routing.

On Friday, the Securities and Exchange Commission and New York attorney-general said the firm had admitted violating state and federal securities law over a two-year period.

Deutsche is accused of misstatements and omissions relation to the marketing of its equities order router.

The case focused on the “Dark Pool Ranking Model” service, which ranked dark pools by their quality and depth, prioritising venues with high rankings.

However, from January 2012 until February 2014 technology problems meant it did not work as intended, something Deutsche Bank failed to resolve despite knowing about the problem for over a year. During that time, the service routed some 1.4 billion orders.

Deutsche will also be required to pay $3.25 million to Finra for deficient disclosure in its own dark pool.

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