CSFB to settle probe

December 11, 2001 Posted: 1752 GMT

LONDON (CNN) -- Credit Suisse First Boston has agreed to pay $100 million to resolve an investigation into the way it issued shares in hot stock offerings.

The settlement -- details of which are being negotiated -- was expected to be announced close to the end of the year, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

The planned agreement stemmed from an 18-month probe into whether the investment banking unit of Credit Suisse Group, Switzerland's second-largest bank, gave favored investors larger shares of initial public offering stocks during the heady tech boom of the late 1990s and early 2000.

In exchange, these clients allegedly kicked back part of their quick profits on IPOs to CSFB, in the form of inflated commissions on other stock trades.

During the boom CSFB made more than $700 million in fees for helping bring tech upstarts to the market – far more than any rival, the Journal said.

Details are being hammered out between CSFB and both the Securities and Exchange Commission and the regulatory unit of the National Association of Securities Dealers over what the regulators will formally allege CSFB did, the paper said.

CSFB would neither admit nor deny guilt as part of the settlement, which is usual in these cases, the newspaper said. CSFB fired three brokers from its technology group in June for violating firm policy.