BNY Mellon Investment Adviser has agreed to pay a $1.5 million fine to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for making “misstatements and omissions” on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) mutual funds it managed over three years.
BNY Mellon told investors via mutual fund prospectuses, and in written responses to requests for proposals, the mutual funds it managed had received “proprietary ESG quality reviews” as part of the investment research process, according to the SEC. The agency determined while such reviews had been conducted for some of the managed mutual funds in question, they were not conducted for all of them.
