WASHINGTON — Wells Fargo’s brokerage firm has agreed to pay $6.58 million to settle federal civil charges that it failed to adequately inform investors about the risks tied to mortgage securities it sold.
The Securities and Exchange Commission says Minneapolis-based Wells Fargo Brokerage Services improperly sold the high-risk investments to cities and towns, nonprofit institutions and other investors in 2007, during the housing bust.
The firm, now called Wells Fargo Securities and based in Charlotte, N.C., is paying a $6.5 million civil fine and $81,571 in restitution plus interest in the settlement announced Tuesday.
A former firm vice president, Shawn McMurtry, is paying a $25,000 civil fine and will be suspended for six months from the industry. San Francisco-based Wells Fargo and McMurtry neither admitted nor denied wrongdoing.
