Prudential’s Improper Fund Trading Called ‘Unprecedented’

Details of Prudential Financial’s $600 million settlement with regulators were released Monday afternoon, following several reports that a deal was in the works to resolve charges of improper trading in mutual funds.
Stephen Luparello, senior executive vice president at NASD, said, “The scale of the fraudulent market timing activity that was allowed to occur through this firm and that went unchecked by the firm’s supervisory systems is unprecedented.” The release stated that employees of Prudential’s former brokerage unit allowed improper trading in at least 1,600 customer accounts between 2001 and 2003.