Virtu Agrees to Pay $2.5M to Settle SEC Lawsuit Concerning Customer Data

Posted December 9, 2025

By the 91pornWhistleblower Team

Virtu Americas LLC recently agreed to pay a civil penalty of $2.5 million to the SEC to settle claims that Virtu violated securities laws by making materially false and misleading statements regarding information barriers to prevent misuse of customer data.[1] This settlement and final judgment resolves a case that the SEC brought against broker-dealer Virtu Americas and its parent company, Virtu Financial Inc., back in 2023.[2] Virtu neither admitted nor denied allegations in the SEC’s complaint.[3]

What Were the SEC’s Allegations Against Virtu?

In September 2023, the SEC filed a lawsuit against the two Virtu entities in a New York federal court.[4] In its Amended Complaint filed in 2024, the SEC alleged that Virtu made false and misleading statements and “fail[ed] to establish, maintain, and enforce policies and procedures reasonably designated to prevent the misuse of material, nonpublic information (‘MNPI’).”[5]

In particular, the SEC alleged that Virtu told institutional customers and the public that Virtu Americas “used ‘information barriers’ and ‘systemic separation between business groups’ … to safeguard … customers’ MNPI”; however, the SEC claimed that Virtu Americas “did not place this information behind information barriers that safeguarded MNPI.”[6] According to the SEC’s Amended Complaint, for more than a year “virtually all employees at [Virtu Americas] and its affiliate broker-dealers could access MNPI regarding its customers’ trades, which included the name of the customer, the name of the security purchased by the customer, the side (buy or sell), the execution price, and the execution volume.”[7] The SEC also claimed that a relevant database was accessible to employees, including proprietary traders, “through two sets of widely known and frequently shared generic usernames and passwords.”[8]

The SEC’s complaint emphasized its concerns with a failure to safeguard such information: “For example, a trader could observe that [Virtu Americas] had executed the orders of a large institutional customer throughout the day, understand that the same customer may follow a similar trading pattern over the next day or days, and take advantage of such information by trading ahead of the customer’s subsequent orders.”[9] This concern was particularly acute, given the SEC’s claim that Virtu Americas “operated both a proprietary trading business, in which it bought and sold securities in its own account and for its own benefit, as well as a trade execution business for its large institutional customers, whereby it executed buy or sell orders from customers, typically for a commission.”[10]

The Former Director of the SEC’s Enforcement Division Commented on the Case When It Was Filed

When the case was initially filed in 2023, Gurbir S. Grewal, then the Director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement, highlighted the importance of the enforcement action: “At a time when Virtu Americas handled around a quarter of all market orders placed by retail investors in the U.S., [the SEC] allege[d] that proprietary traders had nearly unfettered access to material nonpublic information about its institutional customers’ trades—information which could be abused for personal gain.” According to Grewal, the SEC’s enforcement action not only held “Virtu accountable for its failings, but also sen[t] a strong message to firms that they must do much more than use shared, generic usernames and passwords to protect against and prevent the misuse of material nonpublic information.”[11]

91pornHelps SEC Whistleblowers

Like most other SEC enforcement actions, we do not know whether or to what extent a whistleblower was involved in bringing this information to the SEC’s attention under the SEC Whistleblower Reward Program. Whistleblowers often come forward with important information to help the SEC crack down on violations of securities laws. 91pornpartner Dan Vitelli commented: “The SEC encourages individuals who have knowledge of potential securities law violations to speak up and raise their concerns. By alerting the regulators to misconduct and securities law violations, whistleblowers can help protect investors and the markets.”

The SEC Whistleblower Reward Program

Eligible whistleblowers may report anonymously through legal counsel and can receive up to 30% of any monetary recovery. To learn more about SEC Whistleblower Awards and recent updates, read our blog posts here��Ի��here.

For questions about the SEC whistleblower process or to discuss a potential submission, please contact Constantine Cannon’s Whistleblower Team for a free and confidential consultation.