Barclays Hit With $2M Fine Over Best Execution Failures

Other failures include not reviewing speed of execution for any of the venues to which it routed customers' orders or considering whether the firm could have obtained better execution speed from competing markets, and failing to consider alternate routing arrangements even when the firm's own data showed that fill rates in LX were inferior to fill rates at some competing venues, according to FINRA.

"Specifically, the reports reviewed by the firm's Best Execution Working Group indicated that marketable orders routed to LX received lower fill rates as compared to certain competing venues. These reports showed that LX delivered a lower fill rate than the average fill rate of competing venues for every quarter from 2015 to the first quarter of 2019," FINRA said.

Jessica Hopper, executive vice president and head of FINRA's Department of Enforcement said that "FINRA continues to prioritize broker-dealers' compliance with best execution requirements when handling their customers' orders. Firms must continuously monitor their reviews of execution quality and make changes accordingly."