Bank of America Merrill Lynch doctored paperwork on 16 million orders to fool institutional clients into thinking stock trades were taking place in-house when they were not, according to New York's Attorney General. The settlement said Bank of America had "undisclosed agreements" with electronic market makers to "secretly" route them trades for five years. Related: Wells Fargo's CEO gets 36% pay raiseIn some instances, Bank of America employees even told institutional clients who asked that trades were not going to electronic market makers, according to the settlement. Authorities indicated the "masking" practice only involved institutional clients, not everyday investors. However, some of those institutional clients were mutual and pension funds that everyday investors own portions of.

Source: CNN March 23, 2018 18:15 UTC