SEC Smacks Trader With Biggest Fine Ever for Market Timing

Daniel Calugar, who ran a registered broker-dealer business, has agreed to pay more that $150 million to settle fraud and market timing charges with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fine is the largest ever imposed on an individual in a late-trading or market-timing case, according to Randall Lee, director of the SEC's Pacific regional office.

As part of the settlement, Calugar, owner of Las Vegas-based Security Brokerage Inc., will disgorge $103 million in gains and pay a $50 million civil penalty.  

"Daniel Calugar's late trading was phenomenally profitable to him and came at the expense of long-term mutual fund shareholders," said Linda Chatman Thomsen, director of the SEC's enforcement division, in a statement. "The magnitude of this settlement reflects both the seriousness of the wrongdoing and the commission's resolve to hold accountable those who defraud mutual-fund shareholders."