The Securities and Exchange Commission on May 16 announced that it settled charges against broker-dealers Chardan Capital Markets and Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Financial Services for failing to report suspicious sales of billions of penny stock shares. Chardan’s chief compliance officer was also charged.

Jaclyn Jaeger is a freelance contributor to Compliance Week after working for the company for 15 years. She writes on a wide variety of topics, including ethics and compliance, risk management, legal,...