2023
The Texas State Securities Board is pleased to announce it has joined a multi-state settlement with Raymond James & Associates, Inc. and Raymond James Financial Services, Inc. (collectively, “Raymond James”). The settlement comes as the result of an investigation into the company’s practices of charging unreasonable commissions to retail investors on small dollar transactions. Specifically, during the past five years, Raymond James overcharged investors by $8.25 million across 270,000 equity transactions nationwide.
In Texas, the transactions numbered more than 19,000 and Texas investors were overcharged more than $625,000 which will be refunded to Texas investors, plus 6% interest on each investor’s overcharges because of the settlement.
Raymond James also agreed to pay an administrative fine of $75,000 to the state of Texas and more importantly, to enhance internal policies and procedures to ensure all commissions are fair and reasonable.
The agency appreciates Raymond James’ willingness to resolve the matter in a fair manner for Texas investors and its commitment to improving internal controls to prevent these charges in future transactions.