According to FINRA, Steven G. Brettler was fined $5,000 and suspended from association with any FINRA member in all capacities for three months for causing his member firm to maintain inaccurate books and records by falsifying the representative code for trades in the firm's order entry system, causing the firm's trade confirmations to show an inaccurate representative code.

Brettler entered into an agreement through which he agreed to service certain customer accounts, including executing trades for those accounts, under a joint representative code that he shared with the estate of a retired representative. The agreement set forth what percentages of the commissions Brettler and the estate of the retired representative earned on trades placed using the joint representative code.

Although the firm's system prepopulated the trades with a joint representative code Brettler shared with the estate of the retired representative, Brettler entered the transactions under his personal representative code. Brettler failed to verify whether the transactions at issue were subject to the joint production agreement. In addition, Brettler did not ask the estate of the retired representative whether he could change the code on the trades at issue.

As a result, the firm's trade confirmations inaccurately reflected Brettler's personal representative code instead of the joint representative code that Brettler shared with the estate of the retired representative. Brettler's actions resulted in his receiving higher commissions from the trades than what he was entitled to receive pursuant to the agreement. The firm has since paid restitution to the estate of the retired representative. Brettler reimbursed the firm a total of approximately $76,577, the approximate amount of additional commissions that Brettler received as a result of changing the representative code on trades.

The suspension was in effect from February 21, 2023, through May 20, 2023.

This case is similar to other cases involving falsification of representative codes to receive higher commissions. Brettler had an agreement to share commissions with the estate of a retired representative, but he entered trades under his personal code instead of the joint code, resulting in him receiving approximately $76,577 more in commissions than he was entitled to receive.

While Brettler ultimately reimbursed the firm for the excess commissions, his conduct still violated recordkeeping requirements and demonstrated poor judgment. The proper course of action would have been to verify which trades were subject to the joint production agreement and to use the correct representative code from the outset.