The NASD has barred Frank Quattrone from the securities industry for life.
NASD handed out the securities industry’s death penalty after Quattrone refused to testify about his role in possible document destruction and obstruction of justice. Quattrone is currently appealing the 18-month jail sentence he received when a Manhattan federal jury in May found him guilty of two counts of obstruction of justice and one count of witness tampering in relation to suspected kickbacks he received involving hot stock offerings of the 1990s, according to a Reuters report.
The NASD said it asked Quattrone to testify after his employer, Credit Suisse First Boston, put him on leave. Concerns arose about whether he knew of pending criminal and regulatory probes when he told colleagues in a December 5, 2000 e-mail that it was “time to clean up those files.”
The regulator’s National Adjudicatory Council called Quattrone’s conduct “egregious,” saying Quattrone “impeded an NASD investigation and undermined the NASD’s ability to carry out its regulatory mandate.” The penalty is the most serious sanction that the NASD can levy. “Practically, it means he won’t be able to go back and do anything he’s done in his career so far,” said Ted Helwig, a partner at Katten Muchin Zavis Rosenman in Chicago.