Ex-Nomura Brokers Charged in Pricing Fraud; Nomura, RBS Ordered to Pay $839 Million
September 11, 2015
The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged three MBS traders with fraud for inflating the prices of MBS they bought from and sold to investors. Former traders Ross Shapiro, Michael Gramins and Tyler Peters allegedly defrauded customers to illegally generate millions of dollars in revenue for their ex-employer, Nomura Holdings International. As senior traders with Nomura’s residential MBS desk since 2009, the brokers arranged trades between customers, meaning that each would buy MBS from one customer and resell them for profit to another customer. As head trader, Shapiro arranged MBS and manufactured housing ABS trades. According to the SEC, the traders’ illicit pricing took place...