SEC Ousts Thomas Weisel Partners From Securities Research Settlement

The SEC and the Thomas Weisel firm tentatively had agreed that the firm would pay $12.5 million for publishing misleading research reports, as part of the $1.5 billion global settlement among the major Wall Street brokerage firms.

But negotiations broke down when the firm would not own up to the fact that it had committed "fraud", as the SEC had insisted that the word fraud be contained in settlement documents.

As a result, the firm now faces separate SEC action, as well as what all of the other firms face, mainly, customer arbitration and litigation to recover losses.

Source: Wall Street Journal, April 3, 2003