(Dow Jones) An internal committee of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority has concluded that the regulator did not mishandle its investments or its compensation of top executives in recent years.
The committee, in a report released Tuesday, rejected allegations that big investment losses in 2008 resulted from poor decision-making, and that Finra had lavished extravagant pay packages on executives including its former chief, Mary Schapiro, who now heads the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The committee was established to investigate concerns raised in a 2009 demand letter from one of its members, Amerivet Securities Inc., to the FINRA board of governors.
According to its findings, FINRA's investment losses in 2008 were consistent with losses suffered by other endowments and foundations that invested their funds in a similar manner. The Wall Street watchdog is a non-profit organization.
The committee also determined that certain executive compensation decisions between 2007 and 2009, including a nearly $9 million lump-sum payment to Schapiro, were appropriate. Schapiro left FINRA to become chairwoman of the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2009.
The FINRA committee submitted its report to the regulator's board of governors on Sept. 13. The board considered those findings and accepted the report on Monday, according to a FINRA spokeswoman.
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