Following a 28-month investigation involving nine states, Wachovia Corp. has agreed to pay $25 million to settle charges that it did not do enough to avoid conflicts of interest between is investment banking and research business at its Wachovia Capital Markets unit, Bloomberg News reports. Without admitting or denying the charges, Wachovia will pay $20 million for not supervising its employees, with another $3 million for investor education, $1.65 million for failure to retain records and $350,000 for costs of the probe. Ten other firms, including Citigroup and Credit Suisse First Boston, together settled similar charges back in 2003 by agreeing to pay $1.4 billion. All the firms had been accused of having analysts write misleading research reports on stocks in an effort to get business from investment banks. As part of the settlements, the companies agreed to cut back on the contact between the two operations, according to Bloomberg News.
