William Galvin, Massachusetts' top securities regulator, on Thursday ordered MML Investors Services LLC, a subsidiary of MassMutual, to overhaul its social media policies and pay a $4 million fine over the company's failure to supervise agents, including Keith Patrick Gill, known as Roaring Kitty.
Gill, known for his YouTube streams under the alias Roaring Kitty and a string of Reddit posts as DeepF***ingValue, drove a sudden increase in GameStop stock trading earlier this year.
According to consent orders signed this week, MassMutual has agreed to undergo an independent compliance review of its social media policies and trading by its broker-dealer agents.
The company will also be subject to a three-year compliance audit.
An inquiry into Gill's registration in Massachusetts is still pending, according to Galvin's office.
"It's clear that MassMutual was not as diligent as it should have been in supervising its employees," Galvin said Thursday in a statement. "It took the media less than a day to identify the person behind the Roaring Kitty posts, while his own employer took no notice of his online persona."
Gill was employed by MassMutual from April 2019 until January 2021, a period in which he frequently posted videos and other materials online regarding investments and trading, according to the consent order.
