Goldman Sachs to pay SEC $6M in penalties over deficient blue sheet data

The Securities and Exchange Commission announced settled charges against Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC for failing to provide complete and accurate securities trading information, known as blue sheet data, to the SEC. Goldman agreed to pay a $6M penalty to resolve the SEC’s charges. According to the SEC’s order, over a period of approximately ten years, Goldman made more than 22,000 deficient blue sheet submissions to the SEC. The order finds that, as a result of 43 different types of errors, these submissions contained missing or inaccurate trade data for at least 163M transactions. The order further finds that Goldman lacked adequate processes to verify the accuracy of its electronic blue sheet submissions. “Firms must provide complete and accurate blue sheet data in response to our requests,” said Thomas P. Smith Jr., Associate Regional Director in the New York Regional Office. “Blue sheet data is vital to the Commission’s ability to carry out its enforcement and regulatory functions and to protect investors and maintain market integrity.”