E-mail snafu costs Piper Jaffray $700,000.

• Position: E-MAIL

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According to regulators, investment firm Piper Jaffray has agreed to a $700,000 fine for its latest recordkeeping violation, failing to retain millions of e-mails as required by securities laws and regulations and to inform regulators of the violation, according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

In 2002, the firm paid a $1.65 million fine for not preserving e-mails for three years as required by regulations. As part of that settlement, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) said Piper Jaffray was required to review its systems and certify that it had established systems and procedures designed to preserve e-mail communications.

The firm made that certification to regulators in March 2003. However, in the settlement agreement signed by Piper Jaffray, the firm admits to having issues with its e-mail retention system almost as soon as it was installed in 2002 and said those problems continued through 2008. But the firm did not report those problems.

According to the regulator, FINRA discovered Piper Jaffray's continuing e-mail retention problems when its investigators requested e-mails of a former firm employee suspected of misconduct. The firm provided a CD-ROM purportedly containing all of the employee's e-mails, on both his Piper Jaffray and Bloomberg e-mail accounts. When reviewing the CDROM's contents, FINRA discovered that one...